The story of drag racing at Pomona begins in 1952, when a local car club known as the Choppers of Pomona, aided by Sergeant Bud Coons of the Pomona Police Department, advocated for a controlled, supervised racing venue. Coons joined forces with Police Chief Ralph Parker and city government officials to petition for use of the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds parking lot. Their argument rested on public safety data: statistics showed that youth fatalities declined when young racers were given a supervised location. The county agreed, on condition that the organizers secured their own insurance through gate receipts. At that point, the designated lot was unpaved gravel. Through donations from the hot-rodding community, the surface was paved and the dragstrip was born.
The very first NHRA national event, the Southern California Championships, was held at the Pomona site on an April weekend in 1953. On Sunday alone, attendance reached approximately 15,000 spectators — a remarkable figure for the era. The best elapsed time recorded that day was 10.93 seconds, a number that now stands in stark contrast to the sub-four-second runs modern professionals post.
In 1961, NHRA staged its first Winternationals at what was then known as Pomona Raceway. The event became only the second NHRA national race, after the U.S. Nationals — nicknamed the "Big-Go." The Winternationals earned its own nickname: the "Big-Go West." That inaugural event established a tradition that has endured without interruption at the same site, making the Winternationals one of the longest-running events at a single location in American motorsport.
Over the decades the event carried a series of title sponsors: Chief Auto Parts, its successor AutoZone, CSK Automotive, and later O'Reilly Auto Parts. In 2008, the sanctioning body reduced Top Fuel and Funny Car elimination rounds to 1,000 feet from the traditional quarter mile, a change applied to all professional categories across the series. From 2021 onward, the Winternationals moved to a late March or early April slot, placing it after the Gainesville event on the calendar.
Pomona also became the home of the season-closing NHRA Finals in 1984, when the event relocated from the defunct Orange County International Raceway. Initially titled-sponsored by Winston — the cigarette brand that also backed the series overall — the Finals later carried sponsorship from the Automobile Club of Southern California from 2010 to 2019, and again from 2021 to 2022. In 2020, the Finals moved to Las Vegas Motor Speedway because Clark County, Nevada, permitted spectators while California had banned mass gatherings during the global pandemic; that year the event carried Stellantis and Royal Dutch Shell branding. Beginning in 2023, In-N-Out Burger became the naming rights holder for both the circuit itself and the NHRA Finals.
In November 2025, adverse weather forced the cancellation of professional category racing at the Finals. Only lower-level Sportsman classes completed competition; both Top Alcohol categories were abandoned after the opening round.
The dragstrip features a quarter-mile course with a permanent seating capacity of 40,000 spectators. It sits within the Fairplex grounds — formerly the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds — which explains its longstanding popular nickname, "The Fairplex." The facility has undergone numerous naming iterations over the years, including Auto Club Raceway at Pomona, before In-N-Out Burger took over naming rights in 2023.
Beyond drag racing, the site historically hosted a half-mile dirt oval from 1934 to 1937 and again briefly in the 1950s, a 1.7-mile paved road course in 1998 and 1999, and a 2-mile temporary road course in its parking lot from 1956 to 1961. None of these road racing ventures endured; the dragstrip identity proved dominant and permanent.
Pomona occupies a singular position in drag racing history as the site where the sport first gained institutional sanction and community backing. The 1953 Southern California Championships demonstrated that organized drag racing could draw massive crowds safely. The Winternationals, continuously held at Pomona since 1961, serves as the benchmark event against which the rest of each NHRA season is measured. Drivers who win the season opener at Pomona often carry psychological momentum that shapes their championship campaigns. As the host of both the season opener and season finale, Pomona is the alpha and omega of the professional NHRA calendar, cementing its place as the spiritual home of American drag racing.