NASCAR president Steve O’Donnell recently announced that the Cup Series was set to undergo a major change in 2026, with the often-criticized NextGen cars set to see an increase in horsepower from 670 to 750 at tracks less than 1 1/2 miles in length, along with all five road courses.
Set to impact 17 races, including the highly anticipated debut at San Diego’s new Naval Base Coronado street course, the decision was made amid a constant barrage of criticism of the current generation of cars, which was even outqualified by the ARCA Menards Series back in August.
Following the announcement, which was made on regular NextGen critic Dale Earnhardt Jr.‘s podcast, Hendrick Motorsports’ championship hopeful Chase Elliott gave his two cents on the decision, praising NASCAR for taking the initiative.
“I think it’s a good effort for sure,” the 29-year-old said prior to the South Point 400, via Frontstretch. “And I think until we give that a go, who knows? I think it’s easy to sit here and say it’s not enough or it’s not this or it’s not that, but it’s something, right?
“It’s something, and they’re trying. So I applaud them for the effort and trying to keep the engine shops in mind. I totally understand that changes would have to come inside some of those shops if you got too far over a threshold. What that threshold is, I’m not exactly sure.”
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Elliott’s comments came in response to O’Donnell explaining that the decision to only raise the horsepower on tap by 80 was made in part due to the inherent cost to the teams and manufacturers, as well as the litany of other adjustments to the engines and cars, which will rise in tandem with more power.
“We’ll try it, and if it’s a good direction, maybe there’s a way for us to add more, and if it’s not a good direction and nothing changes, then we’ll come back and reassess,” Elliott added. “But I’m looking forward to whatever it brings.”
Elliott’s optimistic outlook was mirrored to an extent by teammate Kyle Larson, although the fellow title hopeful accompanied his praise with a word of warning.
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“I would encourage everybody to temper their expectations, like, it’s not way different,” he said, via On3. “I did a test recently at Kershaw, and nobody told me I had higher horsepower, and I never really realized it. So, yeah, I wouldn’t say it’s going to feel different or look crazy different. I think it will be better, but it’s not going to fix everything, you know?”
Fixing everything may be a bit ambitious, but as far as O’Donnell appears to be concerned, the organization is open to making further changes down the line to help make further improvements to the NextGen car.
He explained that this could involve allowing teams to return to making certain car parts themselves, opening up NASCAR’s cost cap, or possibly opening the door to manufacturers developing their own technologies independently. However, it seems clear that ultimately such decisions would come down to the financial implications involved.
“We’re absolutely open to continuing to tweak on it,” O’Donnell said. “I think we just had to almost stop the bleeding of the cost and now really concentrate on, you got the baseline, make the racing better every single day.”