Rapid City has a new ride in town

RAPID CITY, S.D. (KEVN) - It has been five years in the making and the Buffalo Hunt coaster at Fort Hays Chuckwagon is finally open.

“Once you start from the top it freewill’s downhill and there’s just five or six different hairpin turns throughout the whole entire valley. It’s nothing crazy, its not upside down, it’s not a crazy thrill ride, but you go about ten to twelve miles an hour. The cart that you ride on swings back and forth and a little bit of front to back so it’s really a lot of fun for everybody," says General Manager Clint Jones.

Even though it opened after the normal tourist season ended, the multi-million dollar coaster has already attracted hundreds of riders.

And that’s due to its location, right off Mount Rushmore Road.

“We have you know all the drive-by traffic that goes throughout the summertime, we’ve had more local attention since we started this project than we’ve had in twenty years just because everybody sees it where there’s so much highway visibility," says Jones.

Construction for the ride may look done, but this is only phase one.

“Come next summer it’s going to be fully operational for the targeting aspect cause we’ll shoot at the buffalo and come back up to the top and have a scorecard at the end, but we’ll finish all that up this fall and next spring," says Jones.

The coaster will run through Halloween, after that the closing date is up to mother nature.