NASCAR has confirmed a horsepower boost on the Next Gen car for the 2026 Cup Series season at short oval tracks less than 1.5 miles in length and on road courses. The power output will be raised from the current 670 to 750 HP on select tracks, a point fans and drivers have been suggesting for quite some time.
The Next Gen car, launched in 2022, has faced significant criticism from drivers for being underpowered, a problem most pronounced during overtaking in dirty air. As a result, NASCAR has now taken the much-needed step for the next season, allowing teams to bump up the horsepower on road courses such as at the Circuit of the Americas, Watkins Glen, San Diego, Sonoma, and Charlotte Roval.
Speaking of short tracks, teams will be allowed to increase power at the Bowman Gray Stadium, Phoenix, Darlington, Martinsville, Bristol, Dover, Nashville, North Wilkesboro, Iowa, Richmond, New Hampshire, and World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway.
The list won’t stop here, as NASCAR confirmed that teams may be allowed to unlock more horsepower on their cars at other tracks in the future. Speaking on how the sport takes fan feedback seriously, NASCAR executive vice president and chief racing development officer, John Probst, said:
“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.”
Probst explained the need to proceed with caution before expanding the horsepower bump to tracks longer than the 1.5-mile ovals. The first five races of the 2026 season are the ones where cars will produce 750 HP. He added:
“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.
“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.”