500 DAVIDS MEET THEIR GOLIATH.

Byline: Phil Davis Staff Writer

The steel track below disappears into a black hole that looks about the size of a dime. Think twice about raising your arms.

Free fall - at a stomach-flipping 85 mph. The hole passes in a flash and the car twists back into the sky. Whoa, for a few seconds there you're floating - zero G - then a tight spiral slams you back into the seat at four times the force of gravity. It's over way too soon; three minutes just felt like 30 seconds.

Meet Goliath, the newest monster on the Six Flags midway.

``I was screaming my guts out and feeling damn good about it,'' says David Petersen, a 28-year-old environmental analyst from Santa Clarita who was among the first to test drive Goliath on Thursday. ``That first drop just beats your pants off. And you feel some severe G forces, really amazing G forces. I had a little cheek flutter going on.''

Petersen was among 500 Davids - including ``Scream'' trilogy star David Arquette - and roller coaster enthusiasts invited to the park to inaugurate Magic Mountain's newest attraction on Thursday. The ride opened to the public on Friday.

``It's an incredible roller coaster,'' said Arquette, who - along with his wife, Courteney Cox - cut short his honeymoon tour of American roller- coaster parks last summer to begin work on ``Scream 3.''

``It was the best drop I've been on a roller coaster,'' says Arquette. ''It's a thriller ride, and it's really smooth. It's not a real rattly ride. It's definitely my favorite on the West Coast.''

These are heady times for coaster enthusiasts, says Paul Ruben, roller coaster historian and editor of Park World magazine. Records fall fast, so theme parks must keep upping the ante.

``What we're experiencing is a roller coaster renaissance,'' he said. ``The number of coasters in North America has tripled in the past 20 years. And today's coasters are being built bigger, faster and wilder than ever before.''

And to illustrate this, Goliath with its 255-foot near-vertical drop and 85-mph top speed is a record breaker now, but those marks are expected to be topped in May by a new coaster being built in Ohio.

But who cares? Coaster enthusiasts agree Goliath distinguishes itself from an increasingly tough crowd of coasters with a smooth, fast ride that takes riders from no gravity to heavy-duty gravity in seconds.

``Goliath is an extreme coaster with a spectacular ride experience,'' says Ruben. ``It's nonstop action from the moment you drop off the lift hill until you get back to the loading platform,'' he says. ``I've never experienced that long a period of heavy Gs on any coaster I've been on.''

And he should know. Goliath was the 536th roller coaster he's test ridden in 57 years.

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Even a cold, sometimes stinging, rain - and it does sting at 85 mph - failed to dampen the enthusiasm of first-time Goliath riders Thursday.

``In the rain - totally extreme, dude!'' screamed two riders before taking the plunge for the second time. Then they bolted back in line for a third ride.

The lines for Goliath were - and will be - long. But who's counting?

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``It was just a total rush - well worth waiting for,'' said David Koos, 47, a postal carrier from Newhall. ``Anybody who comes here, they have to get on it.''

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2 photos

Photo: (1) Riders seem to be free falling on Goliath, the new, 85-mph roller coaster at Six Flags Magic Mountain.

(2) Actor David Arquette says the roller coaster Goliath is his favorite on the West Coast.

David Crane/Staff Photographer