NASCAR’s plan to increase horsepower on the seventh-generation ‘Next Gen’ Cup cars next season is definitely a step in the right direction, says defending Cup champion and three-time overall champ Joey Logano.
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Sanctioning body officials have said engine output on Cup cars will increase roughly 80 horsepower, from the current 670 to 750 for road courses and ovals less than 1.5-miles in length in 2026, much to the joy of drivers and crew chiefs that have lobbied NASCAR officials the last few years to give the current iteration of stock car the ability to have more passing power and maneuverability on the racetrack.
However, there is a bit of a caveat to the change: horsepower will remain at a significantly reduced 510 hp for superspeedways such as Daytona, Talladega, or tracks longer than 1.5 miles, such as Michigan (2 miles), as well as Pocono and Indianapolis (both 2.5 miles).
“I think it’s directionally correct,” Logano said during media availability Saturday at Las Vegas. “It’s obviously not a huge bump in power [but] it’s the direction they have to go.”
NASCAR will achieve the horsepower increase primarily by the use of larger tapered spacers. While NASCAR likely could have made the spacers even larger for even greater engine power, there are limitations.
“There’s a lot of parts to that equation,” Logano said. “It’s not that simple to just take the tapered spacer off and open them up and let her eat. 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,” added Logano.
Tire wear will also be impacted by the horsepower upgrade
Coupled with the larger tapered spacers is a new tire being developed by Goodyear. “I think the biggest thing that I’ve seen here recently in the last six months is what Goodyear is doing,” Logano said.
“Goodyear is bringing a tire that falls off, and we’re seeing that at a lot of different racetracks now. The horsepower will make the fall off a little bit faster. It will happen quicker. 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.”
How the change in recipe for the cars, be it at particular tracks, affects the racing and driver sentiment, remains to be seen next year.
