What’s Happening?

Auto Club Speedway’s demolition is well underway. Pictures have been circulating around social media of the demolition work currently taking place at the facility. Many fans and pundits are saddened to see the true end of Auto Club Speedway.

You Need to Know:

• In 2020, NASCAR announced they would be reconfiguring Auto Club Speedway into a short track. However, it took until 2023 for demolition to finally begin. Steve Phelps said during the “State of the Sport” address at Phoenix Raceway that they still plan on building a short track in Fontana.
• Since then, pictures have gradually leaked out on social media of the demolition of the track. Most recently, fans were showing grandstands being torn down, as shown in the picture above.
• Fans are upset to see the track being demolished. There are plenty of fans who do not want to see the track gone.

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What’s Going Around on Social Media

The picture shown above is not the only recent one that fans shared on social media. Richard Peterson shared a photo from outside of the original front entrance of the track. Pretty much everything outside of the track in this frame has been demolished.

One interesting note is that the grandstands that remain standing with either lights or suites behind them are about the same size as the renders in the original short-track blueprints. The grandstands appear to either be waiting on demolition or are being kept up right in the middle of the current front straightaway.

Is this hope that a short track will happen as planned?

Matthew eberele shared another photo of the Auto Club Speedway entry sign. Well, that does not exist anymore either.

Nascarman also posted a photo back in October that showed another place a short track could fit. His plan comes from property maps showing that NASCAR potentially sold the entire race track, with the space left over for a short track outside of the old track’s turns one and two. Nowhere else could we verify these were the final property lines.

What Has NASCAR Had to Say About Auto Club Speedway?

Steve Phelps made the last official statement on NASCAR’s future of Auto Club Speedway. Here is his full quote on the track during the “State of the Sport” address.

I would say that we are still planning on building a short track in Fontana. What the timing of that is, I don’t know. This isn’t the best time to be building based on inflation, the cost of capital, et cetera. But our intention is to continue to be in the southern California market. For 2024 will be at the Coliseum. It is our intention to build a short track in the Inland Empire…Yeah, it’s going to be a short track. Most likely be a half-mile racetrack. What exactly that looks like… We’ve got renderings, we’ve got what it looks like. We are ready to go when the time is right

Steve Phelps

NASCAR is still intent on building a short track in Fontana. As we already mentioned, the original plan may still happen. The grandstands are still there, but, how long will they be there for? Time will ultimately tell.

Phelps said that they have renderings, so until those see the light of day, we will not know what they look like. It may well end up different from the original plan.

A short track at Auto Club Speedway seems like NASCAR’s plan for now. How exactly it happens is not yet certain.