NASCAR Sells Off Remaining California Speedway Land As $300 Million Plan Fizzles

Though there have been rumblings of a new project for the Southern California track it’s clear those plans never came to fruition.

California Speedway (also known as Auto Club Speedway) was a 2-mile D-shaped oval track in Fontana California. It was a yearly stop on the Cup Series tour from 1997-2023 except 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The track was closed in 2023 for reconstruction for a new race project. But the plans never got off the ground.

NASCAR sells details of remaining California Speedway property

Speedway Digest, a website covering NASCAR and regional racing news, broke the news of the California Speedway on X. They wrote: “

"California Speedway and any project there is history, NASCAR sold the rest of the track property.

Speedway Digest also posted the quitclaim deed NASCAR submitted, a legal document used to transfer real estate from the grantor to the grantee. The document reads:

FOR VALUABLE CONSIDERATION, the receipt and sufficiency of which are hereby acknowledged, CALIFORNIA SPEEDWAY, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company (“Grantor”). REMISES, RELEASES AND QUITCLAIMS to SPEEDWAY SBC DEVELOPMENT, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company ("Grantee") herewith.

California Speedway hosted 33 Cup Series races over four different decades. The first race at the track was won by Jeff Gordon of California. Another California native, Jimmie Johnson, was the winningest driver at California Speedway with six victories.

It also was where Kyle Busch got his first Cup Series victory, the lone first-time winner at California Speedway. Busch won the final race at the track in 2023 — the first of three wins with Richard Childress Racing.

NASCAR’s proposed plan for California race project before selling

When the California Speedway closed its doors in 2023, NASCAR wasn’t quite ready to abandon the area.

“NASCAR had a “Next Gen California” project. The proposed $300 million redevelopment project would demolish the 2.0-mile oval and construct a high-banked, half-mile short track. They reserved ninety acres of the Fontana land for blueprint.

“I felt confident something would be done,” Dave Allen, NASCAR’s West Region, told Yahoo Sports in 2025. “We are not leaving the market. We don’t have a timeline yet, a hard timeline. “There’s some things within the sport that need to get sorted out before we can make some strategic decisions as it relates to what we’re going to build,” said Allen.

But that was about a month ago, when NASCAR put the brakes on its “Next Gen California” efforts. More than 400 acres of the 522-acre site were sold and the property was developed into an industrial park and warehouses.

NASCAR still runs at Sonoma Raceway in California. Naval Base Coronado, San Diego, is a new Cup Series date added to the schedule this year. It was the first ever NASCAR race held at a naval base.