Cannonball Loop
The one ride that has come to symbolize Action Park and its extreme thrillseeking was almost never used.
In the mid-1980s GAR built an enclosed water slide, not unusual for that time, and indeed the park already had several. But for this one they decided to build, at the end, a complete vertical loop of the kind more commonly associated with roller coasters.[50] Employees have reported they were offered hundred-dollar bills to test it. Tom Fergus, who described himself as "one of the idiots" who took the offer, said "$100 did not buy enough booze to drown out that memory."[45]
It was opened for one month in summer 1985 before it was closed at the order of the state's Advisory Board on Carnival Amusement Ride Safety, a highly unusual move at the time.[4] One worker told a local newspaper that "there were too many bloody noses and back injuries" from riders, and it was widely rumored, and reported in Weird NJ, that some of the test dummies sent down before it opened had been dismembered and decapitated.[4] A rider also reportedly got stuck at the top of the loop due to insufficient water pressure, and a hatch had to be built at the bottom of the slope to allow for future extractions.[4]