Rocky Mountain Construction

Description

Rocky Mountain Construction, known in the industry as RMC, was founded in 2001 by Fred Grubb and Suanne Dedmon in Hayden, Idaho. Grubb, a structural engineer with a background in residential construction and zoo enclosure design, initially directed the company toward building attractions for water parks, go-kart tracks, and general amusement facilities before pivoting toward roller coaster engineering. The turning point came in 2010, when RMC introduced its proprietary I-Box Track technology, developed in collaboration with Alan Schilke, a former engineer at Arrow Dynamics and Ride Centerline. The system replaces the wooden running rails of existing coasters with a steel track of rectangular cross-section, dramatically reducing the cost of refurbishing aging wooden installations while simultaneously enabling design elements previously exclusive to steel coasters, including inversions. The first application of I-Box Track was the conversion of the 1990-built Texas Giant at Six Flags Over Texas, which reopened in 2011 as New Texas Giant. Subsequent projects expanded the technology globally, from the Untamed conversion at Walibi Holland in 2019 to the Hakugei rebuild at Nagashima Spa Land in Japan the same year. Alongside I-Box, RMC developed two further track systems. Topper Track retains more of the original wooden structure while reinforcing the running surface with steel. Raptor Track, introduced later, forms the basis of the company's single-rail coaster line, in which riders sit in a single-file configuration astride a monorail. The first full-scale Raptor installation, Wonder Woman Golden Lasso Coaster, opened at Six Flags Fiesta Texas in 2018 and represented RMC's first all-steel coaster. Jersey Devil at Six Flags Great Adventure, opened in 2021, became the tallest and fastest Raptor model built to that point. A landmark in the I-Box new-build category came in 2019, when Zadra opened at Energylandia in Poland. Constructed from the ground up rather than converted from an existing structure, the coaster reached 63 meters in height and 121 km/h, setting world records for hybrid roller coasters in both categories. In 2021, RMC further broadened its portfolio by introducing a family-oriented hybrid model built on the I-Box system, extending the platform toward lower-intensity applications.