Dale Earnhardt Jr. reacts to Brad Keselowski blowing the lid off 2026 NASCAR horsepower news

Dale Earnhardt Jr. was happy to hear what Brad Keselowski said about NASCAR horsepower for the 2026 season. On Dale Jr. Download, Earnhardt reacted to Keselowski saying that horsepower will go from 670 to 750 next year.

“It is progress. I’m good with it,” Dale Earnhardt Jr. said. “I mean, everybody’s been asking for it. Is it as much as maybe some people wanted? Probably not, but I think it’s going to definitely improve how the drivers feel about driving the car. Does it really change what the race looks like? I don’t think you’re going to notice a major difference.

“If you took them to Martinsville, and you ran back-to-back races, doubleheader with both packages, maybe you’ll see some subtle differences, maybe not. The drivers, though, are going to get out and say better things. That’s also important. That’s as important as anything else, because the drivers have to support stuff for things to work. The drivers have to be positive. For things to be good, we need the drivers liking what they’re doing.”

Last week, Brad Keselowski appeared on Corey LaJoie’s Stacking Pennies podcast to share the news. Dating back to 2015, NASCAR has decreased the horsepower of engines that are capable of producing over 900.

Why NASCAR hasn’t increased the horsepower in the past

“Well, you know, it looks like NASCAR is going to change the rules next year to where we’re like 740, 750 [horsepower],” Keselowski said. “It’s not quite 100, because, you know, right now, technically, they’re at 670, but realistically, they’re like 685, 690, so.”

When the Next Gen car was introduced in 2022, the horsepower was set at 670. NASCAR has claimed it didn’t want to increase the horsepower because of cost concerns, and it wanted to attract new manufacturers.

Elton Sawyer, NASCAR’s senior vice president of competition, revealed in September that adding horsepower in the Next Gen car at short tracks is a priority for next year. “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,” Sawyer said on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “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.