A Warehouse Complex Is Erasing NASCAR’s Auto Club Speedway Turn by Turn
Plans to redevelop the site as a short track venue have stalled since the old California Speedway closed in 2023. The post A Warehouse Complex Is Erasing NASCAR’s Auto Club Speedway Turn by Turn appeared first on The Drive.
We have an update on the ongoing saga of the now-defunct Auto Club Speedway near Fontana, California. While there has been no outward progress on the site’s potential redevelopment as a new motorsports venue, activity at the property has nonetheless continued in the interim. The good news is that the demolition appears to have paused since we last checked in; the bad news is that the damage is done.
While the teardown may have halted, activity at the site certainly hasn’t. Turns 1 and 2 (and the parking lots nearest them) have been replaced by two massive warehouses—one of which sits mere feet from the remains of the speedway’s front stretch, looking eerily out of place next to the paddock garages and grandstands, which remain untouched to this day.
That’s deliberate, or at least it was. When Auto Club Speedway first shut down, NASCAR had grand plans to revive the venue for short-track racing, lessening the maintenance burden and reducing the facility’s reliance on big-ticket races to pay the bills. Those plans have since stalled, as NASCAR says it has to prioritize other sites that need more immediate attention. NASCAR Commissioner Steve Phelps says he still wants to build a short track on the property because, as he put it, there’s simply no room left for anything bigger.
In the meantime, the site has in some ways simply regressed to a previous form. California Speedway was itself built on an old industrial site—the former home of Kaiser Steel, which survives in a roundabout way as California Steel Industries. CSI still has operations on the site; its offices are in the southeast corner of the property, visible to the right of the two warehouses in the post below.
Dad sent me this. They flew over what’s left of Fontana. What an amazing track that was 
Read More
