Construction began in March 1998 on a site in Irwindale, east of Los Angeles. The project cost approximately seven million dollars and resulted in a 6,500-seat grandstand complex housing two oval configurations. The developers explicitly intended the facility to fill the void left by the closures of Riverside International Raceway, Ontario Motor Speedway, and Saugus Speedway, all of which had served the Los Angeles Basin motorsport community in earlier decades. Inaugural races were held on March 27, 1999.
The opening day was marked by tragedy: during the first practice session for a sprint car race, driver Casey Diemert struck the wall, flipped his car between turns three and four, and died from head and neck injuries. Two further fatalities followed during the track's early years — Keith Cowherd in a 1999 Speed Truck Challenge race, and John Baker during a 2002 NASCAR Featherlite Southwest Series event.
From its opening through 2010, Irwindale Speedway hosted a significant range of NASCAR-affiliated competition. The main half-mile oval was the annual venue for the NASCAR Toyota All-Star Showdown from 2003 to 2010, an event that brought together the top 30 drivers from the NASCAR K&N Pro Series and the top 40 from the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series. These races were broadcast live on the Speed Channel, giving the facility national television exposure. The track also hosted the Turkey Night Grand Prix, a Thanksgiving midget car racing tradition with origins dating to Gilmore Stadium in 1934. Participants in the 2005 edition included Tony Stewart, Jason Leffler, and J. J. Yeley.
From 2008 to 2011, the track operated under the sponsorship name Toyota Speedway at Irwindale. In 2011, NASCAR dropped the venue from its schedule. The following year, the management company Irwindale Speedway LLC filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, canceling the 2012 racing season and leaving the facility's future uncertain.
In late 2012, Jim Cohan, who had operated the LA Driving Experience at the facility, secured funding to reopen the track under his management. It relaunched in 2013 as the Irwindale Event Center. While the venue continued to host Whelen All-American Series events, its identity shifted substantially toward drifting.
The track had already established its drifting reputation well before the closure: the D1 Grand Prix held its first overseas event at Irwindale in 2003, drawing a sell-out crowd of 10,000 and breaking the previous attendance record of 8,700. The facility subsequently became the regular opening round of the D1 Grand Prix calendar in February each year and also hosted domestic Formula D Championship Series events. The venue was expanded to accommodate up to 15,000 spectators for drift events. Drivers and fans considered the circuit among the most demanding and popular in drifting, in part because of unforgiving concrete walls that competitors regularly grazed with their rear bumpers. This reputation produced the "House of Drift" nickname by which the track became internationally known. Starting around 2015, Formula D events at Irwindale consistently sold out.
In September 2013 the land housing the Irwindale Event Center was purchased by Irwindale Outlet Partners, LLC for 22 million dollars. The lease for the event center continued on a year-by-year basis. In March 2015, plans were announced to demolish the racing facility and replace it with an outlet mall, but closure was repeatedly delayed. In August 2017 Cohan announced that the track would cease operations in January 2018.
On December 29, 2017, former Irwindale Late Model racer and track champion Tim Huddleston took over management of the speedway, keeping it operational. In February 2020 the All-Star Showdown returned for the first time in a decade. The venue continued to run events without spectators during the COVID-19 pandemic, launching its own streaming service, IrwindaleSpeedway.tv. Fans returned to the track in June 2021.
The one-eighth-mile drag strip opened on September 29, 2001. From 2003 onward it operated in partnership with local law enforcement to provide a legal venue for street-legal car, truck, and motorcycle racing, explicitly targeting the illegal street racing culture prevalent in the region. Police distributed vouchers for free track entry to offenders as an alternative to street racing.
On October 29, 2024, Huddleston officially announced that both the speedway and the drag strip would permanently close on December 21, 2024. After 25 years of operation, Irwindale Speedway shut its gates on that date, ending one of California's most distinctive motorsport chapters.
Irwindale Speedway occupied a singular position in West Coast motorsport, serving simultaneously as a NASCAR regional hub, a grassroots drag venue, and the preeminent American stage for competitive drifting. Its "House of Drift" identity placed it on a global map that stretched far beyond Southern California, and its role in legitimizing drifting as a spectator sport in the United States — through D1 Grand Prix and Formula D — remains a defining part of its long record.