Fast Cars & Big Leagues: Austin Goes Pro

For most of its history Austin was a great college-sports town with no professional teams to call its own — a city that watched the Longhorns and drove to Dallas or Houston for anything major-league. That changed fast. In a single decade the region built a Formula 1 circuit from raw ranchland, landed its first big-league franchise, opened a new downtown arena, and kept filling a Triple-A ballpark up in Round Rock. This driving loop connects the venues that turned Austin into a genuine sports city: a century-old football stadium raised as a war memorial, a brand-new basketball-and-concert arena beside it, the soccer-specific home of the club that finally made Austin major-league, the AAA ballpark north in Round Rock, and — as the finale — the only purpose-built Grand Prix track in the United States. It's a spread-out drive across the whole metro, so plan for a full afternoon and let the story of a city catching up to itself carry you between stops.