KMG delivered their greatly anticipated first 'XLR8' ride in Europe to new owner Jarno Otten on April 4.  The XLR8 made its first run at the Easter Fair in Drachten, Netherlands. 

Under deadline, the 'XLR8' arrived just the night before opening day and was set up and ready a few hours before opening thanks to the easy setup ability.

KMG has been billing the ride as an affordably priced spectacular.  The ride holds 16 passengers in 8 gondolas and reaches speeds of 65 km/hour, or about 40 miles an hour.

Though opening day is not the busiest of the event, the ride did extremely well according to Peter Theunisz of KMG.  Riders from 4'7" to 6'7 are able to ride and there were many repeat riders. Otten was very satisfied after the Easter weekend and said that the ride did very well considering the low numbers of visitors to the event because of bad weather.

The XLR8 has a stunning LED light package that catches the guest's eye right away.  The environmentally-friendly lighting is in keeping with the rides unique "green" theme.

The XLR8 is the first transportable amusement ride with a self controlled 'rechargeable' power system. The power system helps to meet the demand in order to achieve the expected acceleration without drawing additional power needs.  During deceleration, the returned energy will be stored in built in Super Caps (capacitors), so the XLR8 can use it's own generated power time after time. With this technology, the ride can be connected to  63 Amps but will use 80 Amps together with all LEDs instead of the normal 400 amps. Theunisz declared, "this is truly the world's first green ride!"

The XLR8 moved next to Velp, near Nijmegen, for an engagement before playing the major Queen's Birthday Fair of Rotterdam from April 21 till May 6. Theunisz said the ride has generated a lot of interested and he expected many other show owners to look over the ride at the Queen's Birthday event.