Bell, Logano, and Larson weigh in as NASCAR raises power to 750 hp on short tracks and road courses next season.
NASCAR Cup drivers believe the horsepower increase for 2026 at specific tracks and the road/street courses is a step in the right direction, but they caution that it’s not going to fix everything.
A few days before the Las Vegas race weekend NASCAR President Steve O’Donnell announced horsepower would increase from 670 to 750 on oval tracks less than 1.5 miles and at all of the road courses.
John Probst, NASCAR’s chief racing development officer, said increasing the engine’s horsepower had been a process for the sanctioning body.
“Anytime we consider changes to the car, we have to look at it as a package,” Probst said. “We’ve been doing a lot of work with the tires, and we think we’ve put on some pretty good short-track races. These engines will work the tires more.”
Christopher Bell said he was excited about the horsepower increase, especially when coupled with the tires Goodyear had been bringing to the tracks in recent months. He said a couple of years ago the cars were “locked down” on the road courses.
“I can promise you, last week at (the) Charlotte road course, those things were anything but locked down, and you give us more horsepower… it’s going to be a big deal,” Bell said.
Like Bell, Joey Logano cites the direction Goodyear has been going with its tire over the last six months as beneficial.
“Goodyear is bringing a tire that falls off and we’re seeing that at a lot of different race tracks now,” Logano said. “The horsepower will make the fall off a little bit faster. There will be more fall off with more horsepower, so it’s directionally kind of going that way, but what Goodyear is doing is the biggest part of the equation, in my opinion.”
Larson, who regularly races a 1,400-pound Sprint Car that pushes 1,000 horsepower, said expectations should be “tempered.”
“It’s not way different,” Larson said about the increase. “I did a test recently at Kershaw (South Carolina) and nobody told me that I had higher horsepower, and I never really realized it.”
Logano said there were numerous limitations that prevented NASCAR from increasing the horsepower even more.
“It’s not that simple to just take the tapered spacer off and open them up and let her eat,” Logano said. “It sounds cool. It’s easy to say that here, but when you dig a little deeper downstream there are a lot of things that happen to handle that, so I think directionally it’s the right way.”
Category: General Sports
