Construction began in March 1998 on a 6,500-seat grandstand and dual-oval layout, intended to fill the void in the Los Angeles Basin left by the earlier closures of Riverside International Raceway, Ontario Motor Speedway, and Saugus Speedway. The $7 million project was completed and held its inaugural races on March 27, 1999. The opening day was marred by tragedy when sprint car driver Casey Diemert was killed after hitting the wall and flipping between turns three and four during a practice session. Two further fatalities occurred during the facility's early years: Keith Cowherd in a 1999 Speed Truck Challenge race and John Baker during a 2002 NASCAR Featherlite Southwest Series race.
From its opening, Irwindale served as a significant regional venue in the NASCAR structure. From 2003 to 2010, the main half-mile oval hosted the NASCAR Toyota All-Star Showdown, bringing together the top drivers from the NASCAR K&N Pro Series and Whelen All-American Series in a nationally televised event on the Speed Channel. The venue also became the new home of the Turkey Night Grand Prix, a Thanksgiving midget car racing tradition in southern California dating back to 1934 at Gilmore Stadium, with participants including Tony Stewart, Jason Leffler, and J.J. Yeley in the 2005 running. From 2008 to 2011 the facility operated under the title Toyota Speedway at Irwindale.
NASCAR dropped the track from its schedule after 2011. In February 2012, the management company Irwindale Speedway LLC filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, citing debts of approximately $331,773 to creditors including a $150,000 personal-injury claim and $55,000 in unpaid rent to the property owner Nu-Way Industries.
Jim Cohan, who had operated the LA Driving Experience at the track, secured funding to reopen the facility in late 2012. The property itself was purchased by Irwindale Outlet Partners in September 2013 for $22 million, though the Event Center continued to operate under a year-by-year lease. Irwindale had already established itself as a drifting landmark: it hosted D1 Grand Prix's first overseas event in 2003, drawing a sell-out crowd of 10,000 and breaking the previous record of 8,700 set elsewhere. The venue became the regular opening round for the D1 Grand Prix and also hosted Formula D Championship Series events, with sold-out crowds regularly filling a facility expanded to accommodate up to 15,000 spectators. The track's unforgiving concrete walls, which drivers typically brushed with their rear bumpers during competition, gave it a reputation as one of the most demanding and crowd-pleasing drift circuits in the world, earning it the unofficial title "House of Drift."
Plans to demolish the speedway and replace it with an outlet mall were announced in March 2015 but never acted upon. In August 2017 Cohan announced the track would close in January 2018, but a last-minute change in management kept it open.
On December 29, 2017, former Irwindale Late Model track champion Tim Huddleston took over management, preserving the facility. In February 2020 the NASCAR All-Star Showdown returned after a decade's absence. The track remained operational through the COVID-19 pandemic, launching its own streaming service, IrwindaleSpeedway.tv, to allow fans to follow events remotely. In-person attendance resumed in June 2021.
On October 29, 2024, Huddleston officially announced the permanent closure of both the speedway and the drag strip, effective December 21, 2024.
The eighth-mile drag racing strip opened on September 29, 2001. Operating in cooperation with local law enforcement, Irwindale's drag strip positioned itself as an outlet for street racers seeking a legal venue, with police distributing free-entry flyers to offenders as an alternative to illegal street racing. The drag strip closed alongside the oval on December 21, 2024.
On January 13, 2001, Irwindale Speedway was the site of a Guinness World Record for the fastest radio-controlled car, when Cliff Lett of Associated Electrics set a top speed of 111 mph (178.63 km/h) using a heavily modified Associated RC10L3 touring car. The record appeared in the 2003 Guinness Book of World Records.
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