Sign up to our NASCAR newsletter here.<\/a><\/p>\nThroughout the brainstorming process, NASCAR considered enforcing an even greater increase in horsepower. Yet the decisionmakers ultimately settled on 750 due to the costs that race teams and engine builders would rack up.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you went beyond 750, we looked at almost $40-50 million cost to the industry,\u201d O’Donnell 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.<\/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. Three-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 100s of millions of dollars to the industry.\u201d<\/p>\n
DON’T MISS:<\/p>\n
The increase in horsepower is far from the only revision to the NASCAR rule book. A-post flaps \u2014 a safety measure that helps reduce the likelihood of liftoff during a spinout \u2014 will additionally be mandated at every Cup Series track. This year, they were implemented at Talladega Superspeedway, Daytona International Speedway and EchoPark Speedway.<\/p>\n
Starting next year, the underbelly of the flap must be painted bright orange. In the past, the only requirement was that it needed to be a high-visibility or contrasting color. For new manufacturers (OEMs) entering the Cup Series, O\u2019Reilly Auto Parts Series \u2014 previously known as Xfinity \u2014 or Craftsman Truck Series, a handful of new testing procedures have also been outlined.<\/p>\n
Per the rulebook, this criterion includes: \u201cA maximum of three tests for new OEMs, with each test limited to a maximum of three affiliated organizations with two vehicles each. Tests must be a maximum of two consecutive days each. Tests to be completed by March 1. Tests prohibited at tracks that have been repaved, are new to the schedule, or that will host events within 60 days of the test session.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASCAR officials confirmed a series of changes that will be implemented during the 2026 Cup Series campaign. Last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286490,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[102251,49,48,2332,634,129972,129973,82,98117],"class_list":["post-286489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-750-horsepower","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-motorsport-section","tag-nascar","tag-nascar-2026-rule-changes","tag-short-track-road-course-package","tag-sports","tag-steve-odonnell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286489","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=286489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286489\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}