Auto Club Speedway

For more than a quarter-century, the broad oval in Fontana gave Southern California a major stage for stock-car and open-wheel racing. The venue opened as California Speedway in 1997 and later took the Auto Club Speedway name through a sponsorship agreement. Its familiar two-mile layout became a fast, banked track on the NASCAR calendar. That chapter ended in February 2023, when NASCAR held the final Cup race on the two-mile configuration. For travellers searching for an active speedway visit today, that distinction is essential: the historic oval is not operating as the regular race venue it once was.

From a new California oval to a NASCAR stop

California Speedway was built to bring major motorsport events to the Inland Empire, east of Los Angeles. Its 2-mile, D-shaped oval opened for competition in 1997, the same year as its first NASCAR Cup Series race. The high-speed layout attracted stock cars and open-wheel series, giving the track a distinctive place in a region better known internationally for the Los Angeles basin. After a sponsorship change in 2008, the California Speedway name gave way to Auto Club Speedway. Historic names still appear in maps and articles, so checking the date of a listing helps distinguish the former circuit from current racing facilities.

The venue became closely associated with NASCAR weekends and also hosted IndyCar competition. NASCAR’s own retrospective recalls the inaugural Cup victory by California-born Jeff Gordon in 1997 and the generations of drivers who later raced there. The 2023 season finale on the two-mile oval was more than another date on a calendar: it was the end of the track configuration that fans had known since the 1990s. This gives the site lasting sporting significance even though the old oval is no longer a bookable attraction or an active NASCAR stop.

Why the two-mile track closed

In early 2023, Auto Club Speedway and NASCAR said that the two-mile course would not return on the 2024 Cup schedule while renovation plans were being considered. Track officials discussed a half-mile short track for the same property, but NASCAR reported at the time that its design and schedule remained undecided. A proposal should not be mistaken for a completed venue. The last race on the old configuration took place on Feb. 26, 2023; no claim that the short-track plan opened follows from the original announcement.

Public records show a larger and more complicated land-use picture. San Bernardino County’s October 2022 Speedway Commerce Center II plan covered about 433 acres of a roughly 522-acre site and described potential logistics and e-commerce buildings, supporting uses and parking. It identified about 90 acres that would be retained separately for a proposed motorsport facility. A county board report dated April 21, 2026, however, described construction in progress for about 6.6 million square feet of warehouse and e-commerce uses and about 12 acres of commercial uses on the former speedway property. The newer record documents a redevelopment project; it does not say that the proposed racing facility has opened or that visitors can enter the property.

What a traveller can—and cannot—plan

As of the information checked on Oct. 3, 2026, NASCAR’s sources document the two-mile oval’s final race in 2023 and earlier plans for a replacement, while county records document redevelopment and preliminary work. The official sources reviewed did not provide a current public-tour schedule or ordinary walk-in access for the former speedway. It is therefore more accurate to treat Auto Club Speedway as a motorsport landmark with a changing site, not as a functioning visitor attraction. Do not attempt to enter private property or a construction area; check with the property operator and local authorities before making a trip specifically to see the site.

This does not erase the venue’s place in racing history. The last two-mile race is a point of reference for fans, and records of the track’s seasons, drivers and results remain useful to anyone following NASCAR or IndyCar. The surrounding Fontana and Inland Empire region also continues to change. A visitor interested in local motorsport can instead look for currently scheduled events at operating Southern California tracks, confirm dates directly with those venues and use the historic Auto Club site as context for how large racing facilities evolve.

Reading the plans without overstating them

The safest way to understand the site is to separate three things: the former two-mile oval, the specific plan for redevelopment on part of the property, and the proposed motorsport area described separately in that plan. County records and NASCAR statements are dated evidence, not a live event calendar. A road or property agreement, a planning approval, or a media report about a proposed track does not prove a public opening. If a new facility is eventually announced, its operator will need to publish its own address, event program, visitor policies and ticket information before travellers can plan around it.

For now, the useful story is one of change rather than an invitation to buy a ticket. Fontana’s speedway helped make the Inland Empire a stop on major racing calendars from 1997 through its two-mile finale in 2023. The county’s public documents point to redevelopment and preserve a separate planning area for possible motorsport use, while leaving the future visitor experience unresolved. Readers interested in the track should follow official county and NASCAR updates, verify access before driving to the property and treat old photographs or archived pages as records of a circuit that has already entered a new chapter.