Southern California had many historical firsts in motorsports.
The Los Angeles Motordrome in Playa del Rey was an elevated, wooden-board track that opened April 8, 1910. It was not the first racetrack in L.A. but it was the first of its kind in the world. The 1-mile oval could host 12,000 spectators and was designed by velodrome engineer Jack Prince.
A fire broke out under the Playa del Rey track in August 1913, and the damage was so bad the owners opted not to rebuild.When you think of Beverly Hills, does the image of a race car come to mind? If it were 1920, that might be the case. Prince designed a 1.25-mile wooden track that featured 35-degree turns on a large plot of land where the Beverly Wilshire Hotel is today.
Just as tracks in Los Angeles gave way to development, so did the ones in San Bernardino and Riverside counties. The Riverside International Raceway and the Ontario Motor Speedway sites are occupied by malls, warehouses and homes. The track in Riverside was open from 1957-1989, and the Ontario track opened in 1968 and closed in 1980. Ontario was the first track to host stock cars and open-wheel racing and have a drag strip.
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