Patriot is a floorless roller coaster at California’s Great America in Santa Clara, California, with a history stretching back over three decades. The ride began life in 1991 as Vortex, a stand-up coaster designed by Werner Stengel and built by Bolliger & Mabillard, one of the earliest stand-up models from the Swiss manufacturer.
In 2017, the park gave the aging layout a dramatic second act. Crews stripped out the stand-up trains and replaced them with floorless, sit-down models, rebranding the ride as Patriot and giving it the distinction of being the first floorless coaster in the park’s history. The steel track itself, with its signature loop and corkscrew, remained untouched from the original Vortex design.
Stats at a Glance
- Park: California’s Great America
- Manufacturer: Bolliger & Mabillard
- Opened: March 9, 1991 (as Vortex); reopened as Patriot on April 1, 2017
- Height: about 91 feet
- Top speed: about 45 mph
- Length: about 1,920 feet
- Inversions: 2
The Ride Experience
Riders climb a chain lift before dropping into a layout that sends the train through a tight helix, a full vertical loop, and a corkscrew before a pair of sweeping left turnarounds brings it back to the station. Because the trains are floorless rather than inverted or stand-up, riders’ legs dangle freely through the loop and corkscrew, adding a sense of exposure that the original stand-up version never had.
At roughly 2 minutes and 14 seconds long, Patriot packs its two inversions into a relatively compact footprint, making it a quick, intense ride rather than a sprawling endurance test.
From Vortex to Patriot
Vortex was one of the early stand-up coasters to come out of the Bolliger & Mabillard design studio, a short-lived format the company later moved away from in favor of floorless and inverted models. By the mid-2010s, stand-up trains across the industry were widely seen as uncomfortable and prone to mechanical issues, prompting several parks to retrofit their B&M stand-ups.
California’s Great America’s solution was to keep Werner Stengel’s original steel layout in Hometown Square entirely intact while swapping in new floorless trains, a cost-effective way to modernize the ride without touching the track. The rebrand to Patriot also gave the coaster a fresh identity after 26 years under the Vortex name.
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Patriot FAQs
Was Patriot always a floorless coaster?
No. It opened in 1991 as Vortex, a stand-up coaster, and wasn’t converted to a floorless, sit-down ride until it reopened as Patriot in 2017.
How many inversions does Patriot have?
Patriot has 2 inversions, a vertical loop and a corkscrew, on the same steel track used since 1991.
Who built Patriot?
Patriot was built by Bolliger & Mabillard and designed by Werner Stengel, the same team behind the original Vortex layout.
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Photo: Jeremy Thompson from Los Angeles, California / CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.