The 3d Airdrome Detachment established Desert Center Army Air Field in April 1943, designed to provide close air support coordination and aviation logistics for the Desert Training Center's ground operations. The field was built with the speed that characterized wartime military construction: earthmoving equipment, aviation-grade concrete, and labor working around the clock. The result was a functional airfield in the desert, with runways capable of handling military aircraft and support facilities adequate for the mission. The surrounding desert, which Patton had specifically chosen for its resemblance to the North African terrain where American forces would fight, also served the airfield's purposes — there was nothing around it to restrict operations or endanger anyone who made a mistake.

When the Desert Training Center wound down in 1944, the airfield did not immediately close. It was assigned to the Fourth Air Force and used for B-24 Liberator bomber training from March Field in Riverside County. The B-24 was the most produced American military aircraft of World War II — a heavy, capable, and demanding aircraft that required extensive training before crews were ready for combat operations. The remote desert location of Desert Center provided the kind of unobstructed low-level airspace that bomber training required. The training mission continued until 1946, when the field was turned over to civilian authorities and its buildings were auctioned to whoever would pay for them.

After the military departed, Desert Center Airport entered a long period of ambiguous status. It was closed to regular operations but maintained its designation as an emergency landing facility — a field that pilots in distress could use but that no one was stationed at or maintained for routine traffic. The field was periodically used by small aircraft operations during the 1960s through the 1990s, reopening and closing as local interest and funding allowed. Riverside County eventually took over management of the facility between 1966 and 2002, operating it as a civilian general aviation airport before closing it again. The runway — now 4,200 feet long on orientation 5/23, at 559 feet elevation — was the field's primary legacy asset.

In 2004, Chuckwalla Valley Associates purchased the Desert Center Airport property and began developing the Chuckwalla Valley Raceway, a motorsports facility that uses the former military land for car racing. The transition from airfield to race track has a certain practical logic: both activities require long, flat, paved surfaces in areas with minimal surrounding development, and the desert setting that made the military installation viable made the racing facility viable for the same reasons. The airport designation technically remains — the facility is still listed in aeronautical publications — but the primary use of the 1,129-acre property is now the race track and its associated infrastructure. The desert that Patton chose for its severity now hosts drivers who voluntarily seek its heat.