Hold onto your hats! The year of the roller coaster was 2006 - three world-beating roller coasters were launched that year, offering exhilarating, hair-raising journeys for anyone brave enough to strap themselves into the car. And it is a case of back to the future; all three coasters are of the traditional wooden construction, which many enthusiasts claim give a more exciting – and terrifying - ride.

At Holiday World in Indiana, the Voyage coaster features three drops of over 100ft and riders experience a feeling of weightlessness for a total of 24.2 seconds. The length of the ride is 6442ft (1.2 miles), with a maximum height of 173ft and the top speed is 67.4mph.

Meanwhile at Bowling Green in Kentucky another mammoth wooden coaster took shape. The Kentucky Rumbler is designed to be a ‘twister’. The 2,827ft of track features a record 30 ‘crossovers’ - where it crosses over or under another track. The top speed is just less than 50mph.

The third in the wooden coaster trio is El Toro, at the Six Flags Great Adventure park in New Jersey. The 4440ft coaster has the steepest drop of any wooden roller coaster in the world, at 76 degrees. It carries passengers at speeds of up to 70mph.

The first roller coaster was patented in the US in 1865 by LaMarcus Adna Thompson, sometimes referred to as ‘The Father of Gravity’. In 1927 the famous ‘Cyclone’ coaster opened at Coney Island in New York, where a single ride cost 25 cents. It is said that a miner, with a condition that had for years prevented him from speaking, took a ride on Cyclone, and on the descent screamed ‘I feel sick!’ before fainting.