A Formula One Track Is Opening Thirty-Four Rides This Month

COTALAND, the long-delayed theme park built on the grounds of the Circuit of the Americas outside Austin, has set its grand opening for 26 September and put tickets on sale. The park occupies about 30 acres alongside the Grand Prix circuit and will open with a confirmed line-up of 34 rides and attractions on day one, which is an unusually complete debut. Opening-day hours are currently listed as 4pm to 10pm, a short evening window that suggests a soft start before full operating hours settle in.

Two of the coasters are the reason the park has drawn attention beyond central Texas. Palindrome is billed as the only steel coaster in the country that travels over an active road, and Circuit Breaker is Texas’s only tilt coaster, a rare layout that lifts the train onto a platform and pivots it into a vertical drop. Downforce rounds out the thrill line-up, with family rides including Cloud Flyer, The Soggy Logger and a grand carousel filling out the rest of the opening roster.

The site is the point of difference. Circuit of the Americas already hosts the United States Grand Prix and a year-round calendar of racing, concerts and events, and COTALAND is designed to give that infrastructure something to do on ordinary weekends. For visitors this means parking, access roads and crowd handling that were built for far larger event days than a theme park generates, which is not a problem most new parks get to have in their first season.

The opening date has moved before, so anyone building a trip around it should watch for confirmation closer to the day. Late September in central Texas is still warm but past the worst of the summer heat, and the 26th falls on a Saturday, which points to a busy debut. Austin-bound travelers already planning around the autumn racing calendar now have a second reason to be at the circuit, and hotel rates in the area tend to move sharply when both are in play.

Sources: blooloop, Theme Park Tribune