NASCAR has confirmed the long debated and long rumored horsepower increase for short tracks and road courses in the Cup Series in 2026.
As a result, the target number increases from 670 to 750 for the following tracks on the 2026 schedule — Circuit of The Americas, Watkins Glen, San Diego, Sonoma, Charlotte Roval, Bowman Gray Stadium, Phoenix, Darlington, Martinsville, Bristol, Dover, Nashville, North Wilkesboro, Iowa, Richmond, New Hampshire, World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway.
“I would say, like any other change that we are considering to the cars, we listen to the fans a lot,” said John Probst, NASCAR executive vice president and chief racing development officer in a Wednesday story on the Sanctioning Body’s website. “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.”
NASCAR also did not rule out a similar increase for intermediate tracks at a future point. Bu for now, five of the first eight races next season will come on this new short track package.
“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,” Probst said. “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.
“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.”
Field races three and four wide through Turn 7 hairpin
Photo by: David Jensen / Getty Images
For much of the past four years, since the roll-out of the NextGen car, a large swatch of the industry has clamored for a horsepower increase on short tracks and road courses. The general consensus has been that increasing from 670 to 750 would not dramatically increase the cost of competition.
In fact, it’s similar to the final years of the previous generation of car which utilized a 550 horsepower package on intermediate tracks and a 750 horsepower package on short tracks and road courses.
The NASCAR.com story detailed that Probst said higher horsepower was considered but 750 “was a number that everyone felt comfortable that they could get to without having to go and redesign any of the internal parts of the engine. Once you go above that, you start crossing into very short-mileage engines, because you’re actually pushing them harder and harder. A lot of inefficiencies come in real quick.”
Another consideration has been the ever-ongoing conversations between NASCAR and additional manufacturers beyond Chevrolet, Ford and Toyota. For the longest time, NASCAR officials were in lockstep in citing OEM interest as a reason for a lower horsepower range.
“I think that the interest from the OEMs in NASCAR right now continues to be very high,” Probst said. “We have ongoing discussions with multiple OEMs right now. I don’t want to get into specifics of where particular OEMs would be with respect to horsepower, but we regularly talk with our existing OEMs, listen to potential new OEMs, and are always trying to thread the needle of broadening our OEM base and maintaining the ones we’ve got. So it’s not trivial, but it is one that’s ongoing.”
In an interview on the Dale Jr. Download, NASCAR president Steve O’Donnell said anything more than 750 horsepower would create a $40-50 million dollar competition price increase on the industry.
“Our job is yeah, we want to make a call earlier but you have to think about the out years,” O’Donell said. “We’re looking at Dodge coming into the sport. We’re looking at other OEMs and our current partners.
“Those guys like the engine today. Don’t want to make a change unless we’re going to stick with it. We looked at this as said, we can go to 750, are you guys all good … ‘yeah, we’re good with that but we also potentially want to go to a new engine architecture.’
“That’s a potentially three-year runway.”
NASCAR has explored alternative fuels or electrification. In addition to Dodge, which is re-entering the Truck Series next year with RAM, also has a current generation Cup Series engine it previously used. Honda also has an offer on the table to use a different kind of platform, but NASCAR could regulate it using wheel sensors.
“Any of those things, three-year runway, we didn’t want to say, ‘1000 now and three years from now say just kidding, changing it again,’ because that’s hundreds of millions of dollars to the industry so that’s why,” O’Donnell said.
‘OD Steve’ also said there will also be an off-season test at North Wilkesboro in December to play with both Goodyear tires and the aerodynamic elements of the short track package.
“What you will see us do is we have the drivers, with the council that has Christopher Bell, Joey Logano and others, suggesting we try these things,” O’Donnell said. “Working with the three OEM heads of competition, to just try things and see what happens.”
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