For weeks there has been a great deal of speculation coming out of the NASCAR garage over changes for the 2026 racing season including changes to the points system and horsepower.

On October 8, NASCAR officials announced that there will be a boost in horsepower to the Cup Series cars for some of the tracks.

Currently, the Cup Series run cars on the Superspeedways of Daytona and Talladega and at Atlanta Motor Speedway at 510 horsepower.  All other tracks are 670 horsepower.

Beginning next season, some of the tracks will increase from 670 to 750 horsepower.  The Superspeedways will remain at 510 in order to keep speeds down to a safer level since the Next Gen cars do not have restrictor plates.

However, NASCAR will increase the horsepower to 750 for the road course races and tracks that are less than 1.5 miles around.

Since the introduction of the Next Gen car in 2022, fans and drivers alike have been calling for an increase in horsepower and speed.

The increase in horsepower will also mean more throttle control from the drivers and better tire management.  The increase in horsepower will also offer more opportunities for the drivers to make passes.

NASCAR executive vice president and chief racing development officer John Probst spoke on the change saying, “I would say, like any other change that we are considering to the cars, we listen to the fans a lot,  We listen to the drivers. We have stakeholders in the broadcast, OEM (manufacturers) and team competition and team business folks, so there’s always no shortage of feedback that we get. Our fans are very passionate, they provide very candid feedback, so that all is very important to us.”

Tracks where the cars will get an increase in horsepower:
Circuit of the Americas
Watkins Glen
the street race in San Diego
Sonoma
Charlotte Roval
Bowman Gray Stadium
Phoenix
Darlington
Martinsville
Bristol
Dover
Nashville
North Wilkesboro
Iowa
Richmond
New Hampshire
World Wide Technology Raceway

Configuration and competition changes will be announced during the off season.

Over the past two years NASCAR and Goodyear have been working to produce tires that increase tire wear and put an emphasis on tire management.

RFK Racing co-owner and driver Brad Keselowski noted, “I am definitely Team Horsepower.”

Noting that five of the first eight races will be using the new higher horsepower, John Probst said, “that gives us an opportunity to sample some of the short tracks, road courses early in the season, get a look at the engines after we’ve raced them at the new power level.  If that all looks good, I would not rule out looking at increasing that horsepower at the mile and a halfs and above. It’s just something that we kind of want to crawl, walk, run with this, and so this is the start, looking at the increased power at the short tracks. If that looks well, and I’m not committing to this today, but we will consider expanding the use of that as we go forward.”

He added, “now, some of the best racing we have right now is at our intermediate tracks, so it’s a scenario we’ll tread very lightly to make sure that we don’t upset something. It is a package. It’s the downforce, it’s the drag, it’s the power, it’s the tire wear, all together that’s creating those good shows. So don’t want to just change one for the sake of changing it and then find out later that we did something bad there and hurt the on-track product. So we’ll proceed with caution.”

Noting that the horsepower number of 750 was a “happy medium” and would not require any major design changes.  Implementing the increase in horsepower will come with a larger tapered spacer on the intake manifold and by improving engine airflow and power.

However, an increase in horsepower could also compromise reliability and increase costs.  Teams currently use race engines for more than one race to help keep down the cost.

Roush Yates Engines CEO Dough Yates noted, “if we were to increase the power from 670 horsepower to about 750 horsepower, that probably wouldn’t be much of a change for us today.  But to go back to those 900-horsepower engines, that would be quite the project and would definitely decrease the life of the engine.”