Kyle Larson is a NASCAR Cup Series champion. He’s undeniably one of the best race car drivers on the planet, his ability to achieve success in anything he races. His skill is respected amongst his peers. His voice should matter.
This week during an appearance on the Dale Jr. Download, the Hendrick Motorsports driver shared that voice and didn’t sugarcoat his thoughts on the current hot topic of conversation following the race in Phoenix and the first look at the new short-track rules package — adding horsepower to the cars. Coincidentally, his remarks came just hours after a top NASCAR official made the exact claim that Larson was calling out for being an excuse that the sanctioning body has used in the past.
Kevin Harvick Calls for Increased Horsepower but Questions NASCAR’s Reasoning
Adding horsepower. It’s the popular phrase these days. Heck, these years. The topic is nothing new. But with short tracks struggling since the introduction of the Next Gen car in 2022, the voices for change, and specifically, adding horsepower, have grown louder.
Denny Hamlin has talked about it numerous times on his Actions Detrimental podcast, including the latest episode. So did Kevin Harvick on his “Happy Hour” podcast, which was interesting, because the 2014 champ, who’s been known to take his shots at NASCAR – see Darlington 2022 – didn’t mince words.
“I still think it’s got to have more than a thousand horsepower. I just don’t understand the engine,” Harvick said. “The engine cost hasn’t changed since we changed the engine rules. I don’t understand why we just don’t want them to blow the back tires off the car.”
Harvick’s remarks are what many drivers and fans have said for a while now, that taking a big swing at a change would be the best approach and achieve resolution more quickly versus the small, incremental approach NASCAR has repeatedly taken in the past, with a tire compound change here and a spoiler change there.
Kyle Larson Calls Out NASCAR for Making Excuses
And the reason for such small swings? Harvick said he doesn’t understand why they don’t want to blow the back tires off the car. He says that like he genuinely doesn’t know the reason why. He hasn’t been paying attention like Kyle Larson.
The HMS driver visited with Dale Jr. on the “Dale Jr. Download” in a week-delayed race-winner’s interview, following his victory at Las Vegas. Of course they talked about his win, but, unsurprisingly, the most recent race at Phoenix was top of mind, and specifically, the thought of adding horsepower.
“Go test it, you know, try it out,” the 2021 champion suggested. “I feel like they’ve always used the excuse of, or at least I’ve heard the excuse of, well, we’re trying to keep horsepower to where, other manufacturers might want to come in. Well, as long as I’ve been in the sport, which is longer than 10 years, it’s been the same three manufacturers.”
Larson’s got a point. NASCAR has done in the past. Unbelievably, that’s also what NASCAR, and specifically Cup Series Managing Director Brad Moran had to say just hours earlier during an appearance on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
“We have to have all three manufacturers, obviously on board, as soon as you open that up, there’s, you know, there’s going to be development,” Moran said. “There’s going to be reliability issues and all of these, you know, again, putting that cost back into the engine builders, into the engine builders category where they certainly will develop. And, you know, start developing the engine soon as you open any horsepower up, they’re automatically going to do that.
They’re the best at it and that’s what they do. And the number we’re at seems to be where we want to be to try to, you know, get potentially new manufacturers interested. And if we start getting away from that number, it can create problems in that area.”
Now, to be fair, there have been rumors recently that Honda might be considering a move to NASCAR, in as early as 2026. NASCAR President Steve Phelps talked about it earlier this year.
There very well could be a new OEM coming into the sport and increasing horsepower isn’t possible for them, which doesn’t seem plausible, but maybe it is the cause for NASCAR’s unwillingness to bump it up. But, at a minimum, the new rumors are at least putting off the discussion of adding it until 2026. Maybe that’s what NASCAR wants is to kick the can down the road.
They can keep doing that as long as they want. But you can be sure it’s a topic of conversation that’s not going away anytime soon.