NASCAR “remains committed to bringing stock car racing back to Southern California,” but it is “still not sure where and when that will happen,” according to Kevin Baxter of the L.A. TIMES. NASCAR West Region President Dave Allen said NASCAR is “not abandoning the market.” But he added there are “some things within the sport that need to get sorted before we can make some strategic decisions” as it relates to “what we’re going to build.” Baxter notes with the exception of 2021, NASCAR has run at least one race in Southern California every year since 1997, but that streak will end this year. Auto Club Speedway, which has been torn down, played host to its final race in 2023, while the Clash at the Coliseum, run on a temporary half-mile track installed atop the L.A. Coliseum’s football field, “did not return this winter after three years.” NASCAR had “hoped to race on a half-mile oval being built on the site of the former Fontana speedway, but that project has stalled.” Ten days after the final race in Fontana, NASCAR reportedly “sold 433 of the 522 acres that comprise the venue’s footprint to Ross Perot Jr.’s Dallas-based Hillwood Development company and CBRE Investment Management” for approximately $569M. Allen said that the “ideal solution” for NASCAR to return “is the original one.” Baxter notes NASCAR retained approximately 90 acres of Auto Club Speedway’s footprint, including the “main grandstands, front straight, pit road and pit road suites.” Those were “all to be incorporated into the new short-track venue” (L.A. TIMES, 3/10).
NASCAR remains uncertain when series will return to SoCal
