As soon as you land in Austin, even before you leave the terminal behind, you are magnetized to a place that has shaped history: the former Royal Air Force base, now home to the airport’s Hilton Hotel. What today houses MotoGP riders and teams, yesterday was one of the beating hearts of World War II.
Built in the early 1940s, RAF Austin was created to strengthen the Allied military presence on American soil. Texas was chosen for its strategic location, useful for quickly connecting routes to Europe and the Pacific. But it was also a training nerve center: pilots, technicians, and military personnel came here to prepare for crucial missions in the world’s skies.
The base was decommissioned in 1946, but it did not disappear. It was transformed. Its hangars and dormitories gave way to a civilian facility and eventually to the current hotel. However, its military roots are still visible, in its circular architectural forms, interior details, and vintage photographs featuring Lyndon Johnson in his Vietnam days.
Entering the lobby of the Hilton is like stepping through a time machine. Among posters and memorabilia, one breathes the echoes of another era. By day, the silence is as dense as that of a hangar before takeoff; by evening, the central courtyard – once an open area – comes alive with cross-cultural conversations, where motorsports meets Texas soul.
Yet, the most authentic charm is grasped in the morning, when the café smells of solitude and memories. It is at that moment that the structure – austere, suspended between past and future – reveals its true soul: that of a place where the history of war merges with the epic of discovery, from the skies of World War II to the race to the moon.
Today the hotel hosts protagonists of a different kind of challenge: that of speed on two wheels. MotoGP teams move in silence, watching each other, avoiding each other. Veterans exchange tense banter, aware that Saturday is approaching. Austin awaits them. The sprint is just around the corner. But first, there is a night to spend in the belly of a base that still has much to tell.
