A Warehouse Complex Is Erasing NASCAR's Auto Club Speedway Turn by Turn

The Drive

05-05-2025

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teardown may have halted, activity at the site certainly hasn't. Turns 1 and 2 (and the parking lots nearest them) have been replaced by two massive warehouses—one of which sits mere feet from the remains of the speedway's front stretch, looking eerily out of place next to the paddock garages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. Plans for the Auto Club Speedway site. Building 1 and Building 2 now stand in place of Turns 1 and 2. CBRE
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.
What will be Auto Club Speedway's fate? At this point, it's really anybody's guess. LA motorsports fans would no doubt love to have access to another nearby venue (especially given the likelihood of price hikes at Willow Springs, which was itself recently sold), but given the limited space and dubious state of the project, we'd advise them not to hold their collective breath.
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Byron is one of those weird car people who has never owned an automatic transmission. Born in the DMV but Midwestern at heart, he lives outside of Detroit with his wife, two cats, a Miata, a Wrangler, and a Blackwing.