More power.
It’s the one thing that many within the NASCAR fanbase can fully agree on, as the sanctioning body continues working diligently to find a suitable short track package for the NextGen car.
The NASCAR Cup Series is currently running a package that features 670 horsepower at every racetrack on the circuit, except for superspeedways, where the series runs a 510 horsepower package.
As more time passes without any substantial evidence of an incoming horsepower increase, fans are beginning to question how difficult it would be.
On Wednesday, Doug Yates joined SiriusXM NASCAR Radio to discuss last weekend’s events at Talladega Superspeedway, when the topic of a possible horsepower increase was brought up.
Yates, who is the CEO of Roush-Yates Engines (which just secured its 200th points-paying win in the NASCAR Cup Series on Sunday), said that a small horsepower bump would be possible for the NASCAR Cup Series without much strain on engine builders.
“If we were to increase the power from 670 horsepower to about 750 horsepower, that probably wouldn’t be much of a change for us today,” Yates said. “But, to go back to those 900 horsepower engines, that would be quite the project and would definitely decrease the life of the engine.”
The accomplished engine builder went on to say that although John Probst and NASCAR have a tough job in trying to find the right package for short tracks, he would like to see the sanctioning body remain open-minded to a potential horsepower increase.
“They want to be open-minded about those things, but the balance is, being open-minded and not driving the cost back to where it was before,” he added. “So, not an easy job, but I would like to see them be open-minded and try some things, and it’d be nice to see what that looked like, especially on short tracks.”
While a jump to 750 horsepower is realistic, a jump back to the 900 horsepower package that the NASCAR Cup Series used to run just isn’t plausible at this point, without a lot of changes and a decrease in the life of a single engine.
“There’s a lot to it because right now, if you know every single detail, this engine is refined to make the most power for the rules we’re racing, whether that’s 510 or 670. So, we would have to go back through all of those things to achieve 900. It’s not hard to do, it’s just, once you go there, it’s probably going to decrease the life of the engines and that’s a different scenario or situation from our engine builders, as well as the economics of the engine side of business.”
Roush-Yates Engines, which builds engines for the vast majority of Ford Performance teams in the NASCAR Cup Series and NASCAR Xfinity Series, was involved in potential meetings about a Run What Ya Brung event at North Wilkesboro later this month, as Yates explained on Wednesday.
“They were on those calls in the technical side, and it was more of a car change and allowing the teams to do whatever they wanted to with the cars. The engine discussion centered around opening the transaxle and the ratios and the RPM, and it never really got to the point, the teams were in front of it.”
“I think it was a great idea,” Yates continued. “I think if they had kind of boxed that in a little better, maybe it would’ve been moved forward, but it was a little too open. We never got to the point on the engine side of opening the power. We probably never got to the end other than maybe increase RPM, but I think it’s something the sport needs to do in the future.”
“The All-Star Race is a great place for it, it was just a little bit too open-ended in my opinion.”
