On April 20, 1994, Roger Penske and Kaiser Steel announced plans to build a racetrack on the defunct Kaiser Steel site in Fontana. Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) committed to holding an annual race there a day later. Three months afterward, NASCAR president Bill France Jr. agreed to sanction Cup Series races upon the track's completion, making it the first time NASCAR committed to racing at a facility not yet built. The San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the project in April 1995 after local community meetings showed broad support, citing projected land value increases and community revitalization.
Environmental preparation was substantial: the California Environmental Protection Agency permitted construction after Kaiser agreed to pay $6 million to remove hazardous waste, and 3,000 cubic yards of contaminated dirt were hauled to a toxic waste landfill. A cap of non-porous polyethylene was laid over remaining impurities before track construction began November 22, 1995, with demolition of the Kaiser Steel Mill. The 100-foot water tower from the Kaiser property was preserved in the center of the infield as a scoreboard. Construction completed in late 1996, and the track opened on June 20, 1997, with its first race — a NASCAR West Series event — held the following day.
The main grandstand had a capacity of 68,000, with 28 skyboxes and a total facility capacity of 122,000 including infield and luxury seating. Lights were installed in 2004 to support a second annual NASCAR weekend. The infield was configured in 2001 to hold a multipurpose road course, and a 0.250-mile dragstrip, Auto Club Dragway, was added outside the backstretch the same year. A fanzone area called the Discover IE FanZone was developed behind the main grandstand in 2006. Effective with the 2014 season, grandstand capacity was reduced from 92,000 to 68,000 through seat removal and widening remaining seats from 18 to 23 inches.
The speedway was served by a dedicated Metrolink commuter rail station, operational only on race days.
The track hosted one NASCAR Cup Series race from 1997 through 2003, then expanded to two annual weekends from 2004 through 2010. The second race, run at night, was added to broaden the schedule and take advantage of the newly installed lighting. However, attendance dropped sharply with two dates — by as much as 20,000 per race — leading to doubts about whether the Southern California market could sustain multiple events. NASCAR reduced the track to a single annual weekend from 2011 onward.
From 1997 to 2002, the track hosted CART's Marlboro 500. IndyCar raced there from 2002 to 2005 and again from 2012 to 2015, with the final event being the 2015 MAVTV 500. The 2003 Toyota Indy 400 at the track set a record as the fastest circuit race in motorsport history, with an average speed of 207.151 mph over 400 miles. The 2000 Marlboro 500 produced the fastest official qualifying lap at the venue: Gil de Ferran set a one-lap record of 241.428 mph during that CART event, which as of 2023 remained the fastest qualifying lap speed ever recorded at an official race meeting.
During the 1999 Marlboro 500, Canadian CART driver Greg Moore died in a crash along the backstretch when his car slid onto the infield grass, caught the edge of the pavement, and flipped into a concrete retaining wall. The incident prompted track owner ISC to pave both the Auto Club Speedway and Michigan International Speedway backcstretch areas, and led CART to mandate head-and-neck restraint systems on all ovals, a rule that eventually spread across all NASCAR divisions.
Additional fatalities at non-NASCAR events included a motorcyclist during a qualifying session in April 2002 and two participants in a Ferrari Club event in June 2005.
In September 2020, documents revealed plans to reconstruct the facility as a half-mile high-banked oval modeled on a blend of Martinsville and Bristol characteristics, designed to fit within the footprint of the existing trioval. The rebuild was originally scheduled to begin after the 2021 Auto Club 400. However, that race weekend was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and by February 2022 plans were on hold. NASCAR had by then established an alternative Southern California presence through the Busch Light Clash at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum starting in 2022.
The track's final Cup Series race was held in 2023, after which demolition began in October 2023. By 2025, 433 of the speedway's 522 acres had been sold for warehouse and industrial park development. NASCAR's commissioner cited high construction costs and other priorities as reasons the track rebuild remained on hold as of April 2025. NASCAR announced plans to hold a street race at Naval Base Coronado beginning in the 2026 season, further reducing urgency for a Fontana replacement.
The track appeared as a filming location for several Hollywood productions, including Charlie's Angels (2000), Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005), and The Bucket List (2007). It was used to represent Daytona International Speedway in the 2019 film Ford v Ferrari. A fictionalized version appeared in the 2006 Disney-Pixar film Cars as the Los Angeles International Speedway — the venue for the movie's climactic Piston Cup tiebreaker race.
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