{"id":128978,"date":"2025-08-08T12:02:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T12:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/128978\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T12:02:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T12:02:09","slug":"nascar-exec-shares-when-horsepower-increase-in-cup-series-may-happen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/128978\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR Exec Shares When Horsepower Increase in Cup Series May Happen"},"content":{"rendered":"

NASCAR drivers and fans have been calling for a horsepower increase in the Next Gen car for several years. After changes this season seemed to be under consideration, there\u2019s a new timeline for when the sport might finally deliver what everyone has called for.<\/p>\n

During an appearance this week on Sirius XM NASCAR<\/a>, senior vice president of competition Elton Sawyer said he believes a horsepower increase for the Next Gen car is the \u201cright move\u201d for the Cup Series. However, any increase won\u2019t come until 2026 at the earliest.<\/p>\n

Related: NASCAR Horsepower Increase Likely to Happen<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Back in May, Sawyer said that increasing horsepower in the car was very much \u201con the table<\/a>\u201d as it had significant support around the sport. Soon after, the managing director of communications Mike Forde said on the \u201cHauler Talk\u201d podcast that an increase could come this season.<\/p>\n

Teams have made it clear that they\u2019d be able to increase horsepower without having to make major overhauls and drivers even told NASCAR officials before the Next Gen car was introduced that horsepower needed to be higher. However, it took prolonged negotiations with the sport just to get the limit into the 650-670 range.<\/p>\n

Related:\u00a0HMS Exec Says Teams Can Do Significant NASCAR Horsepower Increase<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Sawyer stated during his interview this week that the horsepower increase would only be for certain short tracks and NASCAR officials haven\u2019t decided what race tracks those would be. He also noted there are \u201cintricacies involved\u201d in determining which places qualify as a short track.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, this seems to be the only major change NASCAR is considering for 2026 and it still isn\u2019t expected to be enough to significantly improve the quality of the racing. A slight horsepower increase to 750 won\u2019t fix aeroblocking, nor will it address the issues with tire wear. <\/p>\n

While it\u2019s a small step in the right direction, the consensus in the garage remains that the racing quality won\u2019t improve until real changes are made to the car that cut down on aero blocking and create a bigger difference between the cars on the track.<\/p>\n

\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\tNFL, MLB & college football writer for Sportsnaut. Graduated from San Diego State University with BA in Journalism, 2019. … More about Matt Johnson<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASCAR drivers and fans have been calling for a horsepower increase in the Next Gen car for several…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":128979,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[1406,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-128978","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-nascar","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114993046970458884","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128978\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}