Ontario Motor Speedway

Ontario Motor Speedway was a motorsport venue located in Ontario, California. It was the first and only automobile racing facility built to accommodate major races sanctioned by all of the four dominant racing sanctioning bodies: USAC (and now IndyCar Series) for open-wheel oval car races; NASCAR for a 500-mile (800 km) oval stock car races; NHRA for drag races; and FIA for Formula One road course races. Additionally, several motorcycle races were held at the track. Constructed in less than two years, the track opened in August 1970 and was considered state of the art at the time.

The first full year of racing included the Indy-style open wheel inaugural California 500 on September 6, 1970; the Miller High Life 500 stock car race on February 28, 1971, the NHRA Super Nationals drag race on November 21, 1970 and the Questor Grand Prix on March 28, 1971. Each of these inaugural races drew attendance second only to their established counterparts, the USAC Indianapolis 500, the NASCAR Daytona 500, the NHRA U.S. Nationals, and the U.S. Formula One race at Watkins Glen.

The track was purchased for real estate development by Chevron Land Company in late 1980 and demolished at a cost of $3 million in 1981. It is estimated that the 800-acre (3.2 km²) facility, with 155,000 permanent seats and an air-conditioned private stadium club would have a replacement cost in 2009 of over $350 million.^{[citation needed]}

In the mid-sixties, there were two prior attempts to build "The Indianapolis of the West". The first attempt was led by National General Corporation, and the second by the Santa Anita Consolidated and Filmways Corporations. The second attempt focused on an 800-acre parcel of land (the Cucamonga Winery) directly across from the new Ontario International Airport on the San Bernardino Freeway (Interstate 10), 40 miles (60 km) east of downtown Los Angeles.

William Loorz CEO of Stolte Construction Co., one of California's largest commercial construction companies, who had been designated the contractor on the project, sent information on the failed projects to David Lockton, co-founder with Chuck Barnes of Sports Headliners, a leading sports management firm in Indianapolis, Indiana, that acted as agent and manager for most of the Formula One and Indianapolis-style racing drivers.

Sports Headliners represented most of the leading Formula One drivers and the winners of the past 10 Indianapolis 500-mile (800 km) races. Lockton was convinced that the prior efforts failed for lack of involvement with anyone familiar with the automobile racing community. He flew to Los Angeles in October 1966, met with Stolte and viewed the proposed site which had by then been subdivided into fourteen separate parcels owned by 150 individual owners, many of them Hollywood celebrities who had bought the land for tax shelters.

Lockton spent the next nine months acquiring options on all of the fourteen parcels and then leveraged his position as the drivers’ representative on the board of USAC (United States Auto Club) the sanctioning body for the Indianapolis 500 race; and his personal friendship with Tony Hulman, owner of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to obtain not only the promise of a USAC sanctioned 500-mile (800 km) race, but also the commitment and involvement of Indianapolis Motor Speedway personnel. He obtained the first and only IRS ruling to allow tax deductibility of the $25.5 million industrial revenue bond offering secured by the real estate, in which the facility would be run by a for-profit operating company.

Lockton convinced leading bond investment banker John Nuveen & Co. in Chicago as well as Citi Securities Corporation in Indianapolis to underwrite the bond offering. He also raised $5 million in equity from Pioneer Lands Corp.; Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette; and Stolte Construction Company; with Lockton and these three entities owning the speedway in more or less equal proportions. Renowned California architect Robert W. Kite AIA whose firm, Kite & Overpeck Architects, Beverly Hills, was retained by Stolte to design the state-of-the-art facility. The track layout was devised by Dutch circuit designer John Hugenholtz (Managing Director of the Zandvoort Formula 1 circuit), who also designed Suzuka in Japan, Zolder, Jarama, Nivelles, Hockenheim and other circuits. Robert (Bob) Kite traveled extensively throughout the United States and Europe to research the design of the facility. Track management planned to make OMS as a replica of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway with many important enhancements. The racing surface was one lane wider and, unlike the Indy speedway, the short chutes (the two shorter straight-aways, at either end of the track) were banked, which made the OMS slightly faster. Drag racing would take place on pit road, which was longer and wider than the one at Indianapolis.