Skyrush, Hersheypark's 12th and newest roller coaster, will be open for business Saturday.

The business of sheer, unmitigated terror.

Sure, the ride, located in the Hollow section of Hersheypark, right next to the once scary, now rather quaint, Comet, is bright yellow and blue, tempting you into thinking it's a nice, cheery ride.

It is not.

Created by the Swiss company Intamin AG (and a bunch of sadistic engineers) at a cost of $25 million, Skyrush is what's called a hypercoaster, which means it must be 200 feet tall and it must give riders plenty of airtime — you know, that feeling you are going to be ejected from your seat at any moment and land splat on a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup character on the concrete below.

Skyrush has four of those wonderful moments.

This fearless reporter — heck, who am I trying to kid, I was terrified — rode the Skyrush at a press preview at the park on Wednesday.

The ride involved 63 of the most terrifying seconds of my life. But I lived to tell the tale.

First, the stats:

The coaster flies over its track at up to 75 miles per hour, making it the fastest coaster at Hersheypark.

Skyrush boasts nearly 3,600 feet of track, making it the park's longest ride — though not longest in duration, because the cars travel so fast.

The ride has four high-speed, high-banked curves and five of those airtime hills.

I only know this because it's in the stat sheet the nice people at Hersheypark handed out.

My actual experience on the ride was one of continuous screaming and a feral terror that turned my brain to mush and deprived me of any intelligence or reasoning.

But that isn't going to help anyone decide whether they want to check out the new ride.

What do I actually remember about Skyrush?

They warn you to take everything out of your pockets, take off your sandals and hats. Though they didn't say to, I took off my glasses for two reasons: One, they would have flown off my face in about 15 seconds, and two, I didn't have to see the horrors in front of me too clearly.

Once locked in, they warn you to keep your hands on the blue bar in front of you. Do what they say!

You have a choice of sitting in one of the two middle seats, which rest on the track, or taking one of the winged seats that flank the middle two.

These are for insane people. They have no floor below them and, I quote the press release, "an innovative 'freedom style' restraint system."

Uh, no thank you.

And then, the terror began.

The ascent is a doozy, swiftly climbing up those 200 feet. None of that slow, creaky psychological terror on the Skyrush, it's all intense action from the very first second.

The initial descent is when my brain turned to mush. It's an 85-degree descent, which makes you feel like you are falling back into the ride and will be ejected from your seat and hurled into oblivion.

Then it gets worse.

That's when the high-banked turns come at you, one after the other.

Not to sound like a broken record, but each of these turns makes you feel like you are going to be ejected from your seat and hurled into oblivion, which at this point might be a blessing.

Roller coaster enthusiasts call this "zero gravity" and they actually like it.

It takes all kinds.

When you get back safely to the station, a voice with a sardonic tone to it says, "It's good to see you again."

You will leave with less equilibrium than you came in with and your vocal cords might well be shot for a while.

Oh, and you have the chance to keep the memories of those 63 seconds for all eternity, as they sell photos of you on the ride as you walk out.

Trust me, you don't need a photo to remember the Skyrush experience.

jholahan@lnpnews.com