The site began as a horse racing track in Northampton County in the 1850s. Around 1900 a 0.500-mile (0.805 km) dirt oval was constructed at the current location between Routes 191 and 248, with motor racing events beginning in the 1910s. In 1966, an additional 1.125-mile (1.811 km) dirt track was added to the property, initially named Nazareth National Speedway.
On the larger dirt track, Frankie Schneider dominated early events, winning five of nine races in 1967 and eleven total at the venue. Al Unser won the USAC Championship dirt car race there in 1968; Mario Andretti won the same event in 1969. The big dirt track closed in 1971 and remained dormant until Lindy Vicari purchased the facility in 1982, cleared eleven years of overgrowth, and shortened the large track to a one-mile dirt oval to host special events for USAC Championship Dirt Cars and Modifieds. Financial strain from maintaining two tracks ended Vicari's involvement after the last event on October 9, 1983.
Roger Penske purchased the property in 1986 and built a new paved oval on the footprint of the old 1.125-mile dirt oval. The resulting Pennsylvania International Raceway opened in fall 1987 as a tri-oval with asphalt surface and very modest banking. A notable design feature was a significant elevation change: the backstretch ran steeply downhill approximately 30 feet, with the remainder of the lap trending mostly uphill. It was also the first racing oval to feature a dedicated warm-up lane for pit entry and exit, designed in part by Rick Mears.
Penske simultaneously sold the section of the property containing the old 0.500-mile small dirt track to a nearby Laneco supermarket chain, which demolished the track and built a store on the site.
The facility was renamed Nazareth Speedway in 1993. In 1997, improvements including a new retaining wall, catch fence, and grandstands were completed, the same year CART remeasured the track and officially advertised it at 0.946 miles (1.522 km) rather than the inaccurate one-mile figure that teams had been exploiting for fuel strategy calculations.
The paved Nazareth oval hosted the Bosch Spark Plug Grand Prix as a CART fixture. The event drew competitive fields in a period when CART was North America's premier open-wheel series. Patrick Carpentier set the unofficial all-time track record during 1998 qualifying: 18.419 seconds in a Reynard 98I.
NASCAR Busch Series and Craftsman Truck Series races also featured on the schedule. After Penske Motorsports merged with International Speedway Corporation in 1999, ISC took majority control of Nazareth alongside Michigan, Fontana, and Rockingham.
ISC closed Nazareth Speedway in late 2004, replacing the races with events at Watkins Glen. Access was severely restricted after closure. By May 2007, grandstands, signage, and all visible structures had been removed; the disassembled grandstands were transported and re-erected at Watkins Glen and Michigan International Speedway. Large earth berms were placed at various points around the track surface by May 2008 to prevent use of the remaining pavement.
In November 2015, Raceway Properties LLC under David Jaindl purchased the property. The sale included a clause prohibiting any return of racing. As of 2024, the track surface survives in a state of disrepair, but the surrounding infrastructure is gone and the property is zoned general commercial, with plans to convert sections to residential use and accommodate a warehouse for C. F. Martin & Company.
Mark Knopfler wrote a song called "Speedway at Nazareth" about a season of racing concluding at the venue, which appeared on his second solo album, Sailing to Philadelphia.