Horsepower has been a very hot topic in NASCAR over the last few years. While the sanctioning body has been declining horsepower in the sport’s premier series, in the hopes of creating pack racing at 1.5-mile speedways, but it appears they have now decided to change course with the Next Gen car in 2022.
On Friday at the NASCAR Cup Series Next Gen test, NASCAR’s Steve O’Donnell said that most likely the Cup Series cars will have 670 Horsepower for the 2022 season.
“I would say we are more than likely going with that number across all of our tracks,” O’Donnell explained when asked about the 670 horsepower package. “We have a few boxes to check post-test, here, with our OE’s and teams to confirm that’s the direction we want to go in, but everything we’ve seen so far tells us that’s the horsepower we want to target and go with.”
According to O’Donnell, it will be the 670 horsepower package at all tracks in 2022, except the superspeedways Daytona and Talladega and perhaps Atlanta Motor Speedway. The decision of which package to utilize for Atlanta will be determined after a Next Gen test at the newly reconfigured speedway in Hampton, GA.
On Friday, O’Donnell also addressed rumored supply chain problems with the vendors who are producing the components for the Next Gen race car. While recent rumors suggest there are worries that some teams may only have enough parts and pieces to have one car produced at the beginning of the season, O’Donnell refuted that claim.
“I definitely heard, through the media, with people talking about that,” O’Donnell said. “Certainly, we’ve had conversations with all of our vendors to ensure that we’ll be in a good place to start the season, and we feel very comfortable with the numbers that we’ll have. I’ve seen rumors that teams will only have one car or two cars, that’s not the case. We expect to be at a minimum of five per car number, with front and rear clips, potentially two or more for each, up to potentially seven, but I would say probably five.”
Good news, there will not be a shortage of parts and pieces for the teams. And for the fans, the return of higher horsepower numbers appear to be in the cards for the 2022 season.
