Fontana redevelopment plan on pause, NASCAR concedes

NASCAR has hit the pause button on its plans to build a short track on the grounds of the former Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif.

The project, known as Next Gen California, included a plan to build a half-mile short track. Only a few suites, grandstands and pit road remain at the speedway site, where redevelopment began after NASCAR staged its last race there in February 2023 (pictured above). But the work has been slow-going, with NASCAR acknowledging cost concerns about it, although it remained adamant the plan was to still build a racetrack. This week on NASCAR’s official podcast, Hauler Talk, NASCAR Commissioner Steve Phelps indicated the status of the project remains uncertain.

“That market … is an important market for us,” he said. “What the future of that particular facility is, I’m still unsure. Would I like to build a new facility at Fontana? I would. It would be a short track because we don’t have room for anything else, frankly.”

NASCAR sold 433 of the 522-acre site for a reported $544 million. It did not take long before warehouses and an industrial park were built on the land.

A rendering of the planned short track leaked 2020 incorporated the original pit road and the frontstretch grandstands. New buildings now occupy the space that used to be Turns 1 and 2. The rest of the track is also gone aside from the frontstretch and pit road.

“Do I think creating a short track out there would be a cool thing for us? Yes,” Phelps continued. “With that said, it’s $300 million to build that facility. Is that the best use of that money? That is the big question. The cost of capital right now is still really high, so for us to just press pause right now is essentially what we’re doing.

“But, yeah, I’d love to build a facility out there. When that is going to happen or if that is going to happen, I don’t have a timeline.”

Fontana hosted NASCAR racing from 1997 through 2023, and all three national series contested races there, although the Craftsman Truck Series only ran at the track until 2009.

Sonoma Raceway is the only presence NASCAR currently has in California. The Clash, which was run at the L.A. Memorial Coliseum for three years, moved to Bowman Gray Stadium this season.