NASCAR announced on Wednesday a horsepower increase for several tracks on the 2026 Cup Series schedule. But why did they choose 750 horsepower instead of 800, 900, or even 1,000?
Videos by FanBuzz
Cost played a major role in the decision, but so did the opportunity to welcome potentially two new OEM partners.
"So if you look at where we are today, where we can go without completely changing over the industry, " NASCAR President Steve O'Donnell said during an appearance on "The Dale Jr. Download" podcast. "No secret, it costs a lot of money to go racing.
"So whatever you do, you want to make sure that if you're going to change the horsepower within the car, you gotta match it up with the aero, you gotta match it up (with) braking. All of these things come into play."
According to O'Donnell, going above 750 horsepower would result in a $40-50 million cost to the entire industry. The current OEM partners — Chevrolet, Ford, and Toyota — as well as interested OEMs like the current engine that teams run today, and they expressed approval for the move to the 750 mark.
That being said, O'Donnell added that some changes could happen down the road. The OEM partners said that they potentially want to go to a new engine architecture, which is a three-year runway.
O'Donnell did not provide details about what this architecture change could include when pressed for more information. He left his answer very open-ended when discussing the options, only briefly mentioning the engines that these OEM partners run in street cars.
However, O'Donnell mentioned the role that new OEM partners would play in this potential change, as well as costs that could come into play.
"When we looked at this, we said, "All right, we've got Dodge coming in. We know what they want to go,'" O'Donnell explained. "Can we put a Hemi in this? What can we do? Honda potentially, so any of those things, three-year runway.
"We didn't want to say, "All right, it's 1,000 (horsepower) now,' then 'Just kidding.' Three years from now, we're changing it again. That's hundreds of millions of dollars to the industry."
The Cup Series will not move to 1,000-horsepower engines for short tracks, road courses, and ovals under 1.5 miles. They will stick with 750 for now and try to match it with the right tires and aero package to create compelling racing.
Will this work? NASCAR doesn't have the answer at this exact moment, but it will move closer to one in December when select drivers head to North Wilkesboro Speedway for a test.
