The origins of the Pomona Dragstrip trace back to a community initiative in 1952, when a car club called the Choppers of Pomona, aided by Pomona police sergeant Bud Coons and Police Chief Ralph Parker, petitioned the Los Angeles County government to allow organized drag racing on the fairgrounds parking lot. Their argument — that supervised racing reduced street fatalities among young drivers — persuaded the county to grant use of the lot, provided the organizers secured their own insurance through gate receipts. The hot rod community raised funds to pave what had been a gravel lot, and a dragstrip was born.
The very first NHRA event, the Southern California Championships, was held at the Pomona strip on an April weekend in 1953. Saturday attendance was reported between 2,000 and 3,000; Sunday drew an estimated 15,000 spectators, signaling immediately the public appetite for sanctioned drag racing.
In 1961 the NHRA held its inaugural Winternationals at Pomona, making it only the second NHRA national event at the time — after the U.S. Nationals, nicknamed the "Big-Go." The Winternationals quickly earned the nickname "Big-Go West" and has remained at the Pomona facility without interruption ever since, serving as the traditional season opener for the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series. Sponsorship of the event has changed with the auto-parts retail landscape: it was backed by Chief Auto Parts, then AutoZone, then CSK Automotive, and currently by O'Reilly Auto Parts.
A landmark rule change in 2008 saw Top Fuel and Funny Car races shortened from the traditional quarter mile to 1,000 feet, a safety-driven decision that applied to all NHRA national events including the Winternationals. From 2021 onward the race calendar shifted the Winternationals to late March or early April, placing it after the Gainesville round.
The season-closing NHRA Finals arrived at Pomona in 1984, relocated from the defunct Orange County International Raceway. When the event debuted at Pomona it was sponsored by RJ Reynolds' Winston cigarette brand, reflecting the era's tobacco sponsorship of motorsport. From 2010 through 2019, and again from 2021 to 2022, the Automobile Club of Southern California — an AAA affiliate — lent its name to the event.
The 2020 Finals was an anomaly: California's pandemic-era ban on mass gatherings forced the event to Las Vegas Motor Speedway in Clark County, Nevada, where spectators were permitted. Sponsorship that year came from Stellantis and Royal Dutch Shell. Beginning in 2023, In-N-Out Burger secured naming rights to both the facility and the NHRA Finals, giving the dragstrip its current name.
In November 2025, adverse weather forced cancellation of the professional categories entirely; only lower-level Sportsman classes ran, with the Top Alcohol divisions abandoned after a single round.
Pomona's racing history extends beyond the dragstrip. From 1934 to 1937 a half-mile dirt oval occupied the fairgrounds site, and the oval reopened briefly in the 1950s before closing in 1959. A 1.7-mile paved road course operated at Pomona for two seasons, in 1998 and 1999. Between 1956 and 1961 a two-mile temporary road course was laid out in the parking lot, hosting additional road racing before the dragstrip era fully took hold.
Pomona's dual role as both the season opener and season finale for the NHRA's top professional classes is without parallel in drag racing. Hosting the Winternationals and Finals at a single venue bookends each championship year and gives the facility an outsized presence in the sport's calendar and culture. Its NHRA ownership ensures a level of facility investment and event continuity unusual among American dragstrips, and its location within the greater Los Angeles market has kept it in front of some of the sport's largest live audiences for more than six decades.