Wicked-fast water slide

Spokane Valley’s Splash Down Family Water Park and nearby Interstate 90 will soon have something in common: a radar gun waiting to clock you.

The difference is that a high score is good at Splash Down.

A new Fastball speed slide, under construction and expected to be ready by June 13, will have a radar scoreboard at the bottom so visitors can hone and compare their speeds.

Unlike the park’s other slides, which entertain with twists and turns, the Fastball is a straight shot through an enclosed 110-foot tube at speeds almost sufficient to get a state trooper’s attention.

“There’s a little dip at the beginning just to get your heart racing, and then it almost has the feeling of a free-fall,” owner Geoff Kellogg said. “It’s almost over before you know it.”

Sliders going 30 mph to 40 mph will decelerate in a nearly flat, 100-foot “run-out trough.”

The water park at 11127 E. Mission Ave., overlooks Interstate 90, and the new slide “is pretty visible from the freeway,” Kellogg said. “A lot of people are commenting on it.”

Although the Fastball couldn’t be completed in time for Splash Down’s 25th anniversary season opening – today, if weather permits – all the other slides have been restored with new “gel coating,” and a number of new features will make their debut.

One of them is the Water Wars water balloon battleground.

Competitors will stand inside cages about 30 feet apart and attack each other with a giant water balloon launcher. The cages will protect participants from skin-smacking balloons but not from the contents.

Also, Kellogg said, outdoor showers have been replaced by four private showers in each of the park’s two renovated bathrooms. For those inclined to take a breather, there’s new landscaping and banners, additional seating an expanded concession menu.

Thanks to the introduction of Splash Cash, parents may control what their children buy at concession stands without being there. Instead of handing out cash, Mom can buy a Splash Cash wrist band that’s a lot like a gift card – except it comes with Mom’s rules on what may be purchased.

With new “pool side service” from roving employees, visitors may order a smoothie or a sandwich as though they were at a beach resort.

It’s also easier to bring your own. Although Splash Down permits no alcohol or glass containers, visitors have always been allowed to bring their own food. Now they can engage a “cooler caddy” to pack their picnics up the hill from the parking lot.

Kellogg said suppliers tell him it’s terrible to allow people to bring their own food, but he and his wife, Melissa, have six children and “it’s a privilege that we as a family also would appreciate.”

The couple’s children, ages 3 to 18, “pretty much live here in the summertime,” but most of them are working for the family business, Kellogg said.

The couple purchased Splash Down five years ago, and outlined a 10- to 12-year plan for improvements. They’re considering a “lazy river” ride and a tube ride for small children, “and then I think we’d be done,” Kellogg said.

Any expansion would have to be approved by Spokane Valley because the park is on leased land in the city’s Valley Mission Park. Improvements also would have to make financial sense, Kellogg said, noting the new speed slide will cost $150,000 to $200,000.

Anyway, bigger isn’t necessarily better. Some parents feel their children are safer in a smaller park, and “we want to maintain the affordable family atmosphere,” Kellogg said.