NASCAR Is ‘Bullish’ About Southern California, But Doesn’t Know When It Will Be Back
The 2025 NASCAR schedules have been released and there is a big blank spot on the map.
For the first time in decades, NASCAR will not have any events in the Southern California market.
The last race held at the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana before it was demolished was in February 2023, and the season-opening Clash exhibition event that took place on a temporary track built inside of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum for the past three years is moving to Winston-Salem’s Bowman Gray Stadium next year.
Ahead of this year’s Daytona 500, NASCAR President Steve Phelps told Fox Sports that there would be a race in Southern California in 2025, but the pieces of the puzzle never came together.
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NASCAR has been planning to replace the two-mile Auto Club Speedway with a half-mile short track, but the project is taking longer to come together than initially expected.
“Our goal is really to be in Southern California long term” NASCAR executive vice president and chief venue and racing innovations officer Ben Kennedy told American Cars And Racing during a press conference for the release of the 2025 schedule.
“We’ve continued to work on our plans for Fontana, we have a number of configurations and variations that the team has been working on for what that track might look like and what are kind of the other activities that can happen on that parcel of land that we have there, but then also exploring all of our opportunities in the Southern California market. It’s a massive market for us. Number two in terms of the quantity of NASCAR fans, it’s a huge media market for us, its in [broadcast partner] Fox’s backyard. So, strategically as a sport, it makes a lot of sense for us to be in Southern California.”
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Reports this week said that NASCAR was in talks to hold a street race in San Diego, but the series has not officially said anything about it. Nevertheless, Kennedy was adamant that a return will happen someday.
“What that looks like in the future remains to be seen. Unfortunately we weren’t able to have it on the ’25 schedule, but bullish about getting it back on the schedule here in the future.”
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Early renderings of the Auto Club Speedway replacement depict it as a paper clip-shaped track with long straights and tight curves, but Kennedy’s comments suggest that other designs are being considered.
The Cup Series and Xfinity Series will be heading even farther south than Southern California, however, and will be holding a race at Mexico City’s Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez road course the weekend of June 28.
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