{"id":198817,"date":"2025-10-09T00:31:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T00:31:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/198817\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T00:31:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T00:31:07","slug":"full-list-of-17-racetracks-impacted-by-2026-change-announced-by-nascar-motorsport-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/198817\/","title":{"rendered":"Full list of 17 racetracks impacted by 2026 change announced by NASCAR – Motorsport – Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"

NASCAR is dialing up the power for 2026 \u2014 and fans are already buzzing. During an appearance on ‘The Dale Jr. Download,’ NASCAR<\/a> President Steve O’Donnell confirmed to Dale Earnhardt Jr.<\/a> that the sport will increase the target horsepower for Next Gen cars to 750 at all road courses and ovals under 1.5 miles in length next season, a major shift from the current 670-hp package.<\/p>\n

The announcement comes after months of lobbying from fans, drivers, and pundits urging NASCAR to make Cup Series racing faster and more competitive, while fans also are saying the same thing about NASCAR on Amazon Prime<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Recent horsepower tests at New Hampshire Motor Speedway reportedly produced a \u201csurprising result,\u201d convincing executives that a change was needed to spice up the racing product. It comes after O’Donell gave a three-word remark about the ongoing court battle with Michael Jordan.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cSo, why 750? Why not 800? Why not 1,000?\u201d O\u2019Donnell told Dale Earnhardt Jr.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at where we are today, where we can go without completely changing over the industry \u2026 whatever you do, you want to make sure that if you\u2019re going to change the horsepower within the car, you\u2019ve got to match it up with the aero of the car, you\u2019ve got to match it up with braking. All of these different things come into play.\u201d<\/p>\n

O’Donnell emphasized that the decision wasn\u2019t made in a vacuum \u2014 it came directly in response to the sport\u2019s core audience. \u201cWe hear the fans, we hear the industry,\u201d he said. \u201cYes, we want to try and see what will work here.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the new rule, NASCAR will go from 670 hp to 750 hp at every road course and track under 1.5 miles in length. The list of road courses affected includes Circuit of The Americas (COTA), Sonoma Raceway, Watkins Glen International, Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL and the new San Diego Street Circuit.<\/p>\n

On the oval side, the change will impact Bowman Gray Stadium, Bristol Motor Speedway, Darlington Raceway, Dover Motor Speedway, Iowa Speedway, Martinsville Speedway, Nashville Superspeedway, New Hampshire Motor Speedway, North Wilkesboro Speedway, Phoenix Raceway, Richmond Raceway and World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway.<\/p>\n

DON’T MISS…<\/p>\n

O’Donnell noted that NASCAR settled on 750 hp after exploring more dramatic increases. \u201cIf you went beyond 750, we looked at almost $40\u201350 million [in] cost to the industry,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd so if you look at our job, it\u2019s, yeah, you want to make a call right away. But you\u2019ve got to think about the out years.\u201d<\/p>\n

The move signals NASCAR\u2019s intent to prioritize racing excitement while remaining financially sustainable. O\u2019Donnell also teased that the next few years could bring even more change \u2014 including possible new manufacturer entries.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re looking at Dodge coming into the sport, we\u2019re looking at other OEMs coming into the sport, and then our current partners,\u201d he said. \u201cThree-year runway, we didn\u2019t want to say, \u2018Alright, it\u2019s 1,000 now,\u2019 and then, just kidding, three years from now, we\u2019re changing it again. That\u2019s hundreds of millions of dollars to the industry.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASCAR is dialing up the power for 2026 \u2014 and fans are already buzzing. During an appearance on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198818,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,31563,2332,634,42675,82,98117,98248],"class_list":{"0":"post-198817","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-horsepower-increase","11":"tag-motorsport-section","12":"tag-nascar","13":"tag-next-gen-cars","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-steve-odonnell","16":"tag-track-list"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}