Copperhead Strike

Copperhead Strike opened in 2019 as the first roller coaster Carowinds had built since 2010, and the first multi-launch coaster anywhere in the Carolinas. Mack Rides supplied a custom launch layout that fires trains from 0 to 42 mph in about 2.5 seconds directly out of Granny Byrd's jam shed, sending 1930s-coupe-styled cars into a heartline roll before the first of two vertical loops.

The ride's queue commits fully to its bootlegger theme: guests wind through a run-down farm at the edge of the fictional Blue Ridge Mountains, past copper vats that are clearly cooking something stronger than jam, before "Granny" hollers them onto the getaway vehicle. A second LSM launch mid-course boosts speed from 35 to 50 mph and leads into a corkscrew, an inverted top hat, and a closing loop — five inversions in total, the most of any double-launch coaster in North America when it opened.

Built as the headliner of the new Blue Ridge Junction area on the South Carolina side of the park, Copperhead Strike gave Carowinds its first launch coaster and reset expectations for how much theming the park would build around a single new ride.