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COTA Land
Austin, Texas
OPENING IN 2026
 Park News - (12/21/2025) By now you’ve seen the headlines about 2 riders getting stuck in a roller coaster for about an hour at COTALAND in Texas. It is true… but the park technically hasn’t even opened yet. Instead the park has just been testing this one attraction with preview riders during the 2025 holiday Peppermint Parkway experience, ahead of the park’s actual opening in 2026. Of course this all took place on the new Vekoma Tilt Coaster, Circuit Breaker, and just as you might expect, the coaster train entered the “tilt” feature at the top of the hill and came to a stop.
You may recall the media going nuts every time this happened over the summer on Siren’s Curse at Cedar Point as well, but this is actually an example of the roller coaster’s safety system doing exactly what it was designed to do. If it tilts and the various sensors are not giving back an all approved signal, the roller coaster train will not drop the train down the first drop. The park confirmed that it was due to a “sensor pin malfunction” and that the COTA staff was able to resolve the issue and the ride “proceeded without incident.”
Based on the media treatment of Siren’s Curse at Cedar Point, I can say with a fair amount of confidence that this won’t be the last time we hear about such an event happening over the next year once COTALAND opens. Trains getting stopped by the safety systems at this extremely vital portion of the ride experience is to be expected, but due to the extreme visual nature of how it looks when it happens and the click-bait style of reporting done by today’s media, they’re going to jump on this every time to cry wolf, even if riders are only stalled for a few minutes.
In the meantime… if you’re in the area and want to take a spin on Circuit Breaker, in addition to paying to get into the Peppermint Park experience, they’re charging an extra $15 fee per rider if you want to try out Circuit Breaker between now and Jan. 4th, 2026. ($30 if you want to cut to the front of the line…)
(12/13/2025) You can see video footage of Palindrome making test runs at COTALAND this week, as shot and posted by ThrillNerds.
(10/17/2025) While we wont see the whole COTA Land theme park open until sometime in 2026, they are apparently offering a rare chance to ride the new Circuit Breaker roller coaster to those are have purchased a ticket to F1 race taking place from today throuhg to this sunday. Again... do not buy a ticket to ride the roller coaster UNLESS you also have purchased a ticket to one of the three F1 race days, otherwise you will not be allowed to ride!
UPDATE - Just found a POV of the Circuit Breaker run that was posted yesterday.
(9/21/2025) Some great footage showing off the new Circuit Breaker roller coaster (Vekoma Tilt) testing can be seen below, shot from the air and ground.
As the drone cam rotates, it’s interesting to see how far back Palindrome (the other steel coaster) is from the location of Circuit Breaker, as well as any other attractions under construction in-between.
(9/13/2025) A new quick update from COTALAND this week, as the new theme park project has now announced that they are expecting to be fully open sometime in 2026. This pushes back the date from the last estimate given in early 2025 when they had hoped to have it up and running in time for the 2025 F1 race coming on Oct. 19, 2025. With lots left to do, we can only wait and see if they are planning to have the park up in time for a more traditional spring/summer season in 2026, or if they’re going to shoot for a fall 2026 timeline again to take advantage of the race crowds.
(8/28/2025) Good news for COTAland, as the park held a celebration to mark the completion of the installation of track on the park’s new Circuit Breaker roller coaster from Vekoma.
(3/8/2025) It’s been quite some time since the Circuit of the Americas has mentioned a planned opening timeline for the COTALand amusement park but according to this news article, they are hoping to finally open the park in time for the next Formula 1 United States Grand Prix race, which will start on October 19, 2025. With that in mind, there is still a lot to do, so look for the pace of construction to kick into high gear very soon if they want to make that deadline.
(12/21/2024) A fun video from ThillNerds reveals the latest construction progress taking place on the future COTAland theme park, including the installation of the tilt track on the Circuit Breaker coaster. They also have some layout plans to show off for a new log ride attraction planned for the park along with some other new additions.
(11/28/2024) While we’re still aways out from the opening of the COTALand theme park, the Circuit of the Americas did open a new attraction this week, a new race themed outdoor mini-golf course.
The new attraction is open just in time for guests to experience along with the Peppermint Parkway drive-through christmas light experience, open now through Dec. 29th.
(10/8/2024) New pictures from COTALand show that the tower and some of the track for the tilting first drop on Circuit Breaker (Vekoma Tilt Coaster) have now been installed, which you can see below. I teased on social media about how there might be a “Race” to see who can open their Tilt Coaster first, the reality is that Cedar Point’s ride (Siren’s Curse) is virtually guaranteed to open first, even though they haven’t even started vertical construction yet.
The main reason is that COTALand is not set to open in early 2025, and isn’t really expected to be ready to open until maybe late 2025 under the best of circumstances. There are a number of items delaying the progress and opening of any new rides at the Austin, Texas location that just don’t have an easy solution right now.
Regardless, I’m happy to see the great progress the construction crews at now making at putting up the park’s two new roller coasters ahead of the opening.
(9/28/2024) An interview with the local news takes time to discuss the plans to build COTALand over at the Circuit of the Americas racetrack in Austin. We get some great shots of the new Palindrome coaster has was just installed over the past several weeks, while they discuss the financial plans to develop the park. It is said that they’ve raised $40 million out of a targeted $65 million goal to build the park, which they hope to have ready to open sometime in 2025.
(6/30/2024) More good news for the new COTAland park, as the track install for the new Palindrome shuttle coaster has now been completed. Now, we still don’t have a solid date as to when the COTAland park project is expected to be complete, I’m told that the Circuit of the Americas track has previously opened their rides to guests attending the fall F1 race, which is slated for October 18-20, 2024 this year.
With the track now complete we can only assume they will be finalizing the installation and setup of the electronics, sensors and ride computer just ahead of ride testing. So if everything goes smoothly… it isn’t beyond thinking that there may be a chance Palindrome might be ready in time for the October race.
(2/2/2024) The video says it all... with an incredible look at the new train design for Circuit Breaker that not only looks cool... but sounds cool too.
(1/29/2024) After much silence, a long awaited update about COTALAND was issued during the ACE South Central Winterfest event. According to a presentation from Matt Hughey, the plan is now officially to open COTALAND in 2025. Construction is proceeding now on Palindrome, which they hope to be complete by April or May, then crews will soon begin work installing Circuit Breaker.
Some pictures of the new train for Circuit Breaker were also shown, revealing that it will have on-board audio as well as on-board lighting effects.
(1/7/2024) A reader was able to fly their drone near COTALAND and snapped up a great image of all the supports and track pieces on site for the future Circuit Breaker (Vekoma TILT) coaster. I’m really hoping we start to see some vertical construction photos of this and Palindrome this year.
(12/29/2023) I’m not sure how long this clip may stay up, but Midway Mayhem did post a quick reel showing off black Circuit Breaker track now sitting on site at COTALAND. I knew we saw much of this sitting on site in another post elsewhere about a month ago, so nothing appears to have vertical yet for this, but I’d imagine they would build the previously announced Palindrome coaster first anyway.
Now if only COTALAND would get on the social-media ball and start posting updates all around about what is going on, that would certainly be appreciated by everyone.
(11/26/2023) Are things finally starting to move forward at the proposed COTALAND park in Austin? We’ve heard that work preparing footers for the park’s Palindrome coaster (Gerstlauer Infinity Coaster) has begun after a prolonged delay, with the track pieces having been on site for some time. Meanwhile a post on facebook is apparently showing off track and support segments arriving for Circuit Breaker, the park’s Vekoma Tilt Coaster. The only odd thing is that while the supports still appear to be white, the concept ride’s former red track shown in the concept art has now been replaced by all black track, based on what has arrived.
(7/12/2023) According to this article the pieces of a new roller coaster along with other rides lie scattered around the parking lots at the Circuit of the Americas as part of the planned COTALand amusement park. Unfortunately it was confirmed that COTALand won’t be ready to open in 2023, with delays in the fabrication process for several major attractions to blame. Elsewhere rumors have blamed some of the delay on permitting issues as well, but at this time there seems to be no solid timeline as to when the park might be ready to open.
I imagine we won’t have a better idea until we start to see the majority of the rides go vertical.
(5/6/2023) After a bit of a silence, the local news reports that a new site plan has been filed with the city of Austin for “COTA Land” for review. There are few details about the 21-acre park beyond that, other than saying it will be located near turns 19 and 20 of the race track and will include about 30 rides, including three roller coasters. This would include the current Texas Wildcat that is already operational on the property as well as the previously announced Circuit Breaker and Palindrome coaster projects.
With the plans now filed with the city, hopefully upon approval work will begin to be fast tracked to get some of the new rides and attractions already on site installed and running.
(11/18/21) The mystery Gerstlauer Infinity coaster has been announced as Palindrome, and it will be a unique looking shuttle coaster experience coming to COTALand in Austin by late 2022. Based on the animation, the coaster would send cars up a vertical lift hill and drop through into a course that ends with a large spike, before rolling backwards through the entire course, coming to a stop again rolling backwards up the first drop and into a brake zone / track switch at the bottom that would send the cars back to the station. Another interesting thing is that the coaster will fly over (inverted) the main road into the park area, so it will definitely be a showpiece for COTALand.
It is interesting to go from a place that I’ve never even heard of, to a place that is adding some major new attractions. This will be a place to keep an eye on going forward and the plan is to have the coaster up and running in time for the Formula 1 race next year. Check out the animation for yourself below.
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