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By Saajan Jogia
Sports Contributing Writer
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RFK Racing's Brad Keselowski has spoken about how NASCAR plans to bump up the horsepower figure to 750 on the current Next Gen car, which was introduced in 2022. In recent months, several Cup Series drivers have targeted the car for being underpowered.
Over the years, NASCAR has decreased the power output, despite the current engines capable of producing in excess of 900 horsepower. Newsweek Sports reported Keselowski's problem with the Next Gen car, explaining that it feels like an old pickup truck. The 41-year-old driver revealed that he had to change his driving style to adapt to the car.
NASCAR is likely taking driver feedback seriously since it plans to make the Next Gen car more powerful. Keselowski addressed the topic on the Stacking Pennies Podcast with Corey LaJoie. He said:
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"Well, you know, it looks like NASCAR is going to change the rules next year to where we're like 740, 750 [horsepower].
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"It's not quite 100, because, you know, right now, technically, they're at 670, but realistically, they're like 685, 690, so."
NASCAR's senior vice president of competition, Elton Sawyer, admitted in recent months that the Next Gen car will produce more power on short tracks from 2026. He said:
"We're always trying to make our racing — whether it's short track, road course, intermediate, superspeedway — we want to make it better. We feel like we have a really good product right now, but we want to build on that. We still have some work to do.
"We've discussed many times about horsepower on the short tracks and that's something that's an ongoing discussion with our industry stakeholders, Toyota, Ford and Chevy, as well as our engine builder and our race teams. Feel like we're having positive conversations; there's still a lot that goes into that. Obviously, that's a 2026 initiative to get that across the line.
"So, we still continue to have very positive conversations around that and some of it boils down to if you look at a Martinsville, you look at a Richmond — it's pretty straightforward because that's a short track. But then, you look at a Loudon, and Loudon is a mile, but it races like a short track, so does it fall into that same bucket?
"We have to look at racetracks like that — Dover — it's a mile racetrack, but speeds are up there. Is that also in that engine package that may be on the short track? ... We're optimistic that we're going to get there, but still a little bit more work to do on that."
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