Both sides of the track raced forward until May 28, 1982, when the trains on one side of the track were reversed to ride backwards. The Racer became the first racing roller coaster in the world to do so.

The most famous coaster at Kings Island known for going backwards is The Racer. However, there is a historical nuance to this: from 1982 until 2008, one side of this classic wooden racing coaster was famously reversed so that riders would travel the entire course backwards. This "Recar" (Racer spelled backwards) became a cult favorite. In 2008, the park returned both sides to a forward-facing configuration to comply with manufacturer recommendations and standardized maintenance. Currently, if you are looking for a ride with backward motion, Invertigo is the primary coaster that offers this experience. It is a "shuttle" coaster that takes riders through a series of loops and drops forward, then climbs a second lift hill and repeats the entire track in reverse. Unlike The Racer's old wooden backward experience, Invertigo is a steel inverted coaster where your feet dangle, providing a high-intensity sensation of speed and G-forces while moving backward through a vertical loop and a cobra roll.