Dale Earnhardt Jr. weighs in on NASCAR horsepower debate

Horsepower, horsepower, horsepower.

It’s been one of the main talking points in NASCAR during the Next Gen car era but ramped up even more this past weekend both before and following Sunday’s Shriners Children’s 500 at Phoenix Raceway. Denny Hamlin got the conversation started when he said on his “Actions Detrimental” podcast that he didn’t know why NASCAR was reluctant to increase horsepower in the racecars.

“The engine bills are the same, I’ve been saying this forever,” Hamlin said. “The engine bills are the same now as they were when they were 900, Jared. We buy engines, we know.”

Speaking on his “Dale Jr. Download” podcast this week, Dale Earnhardt Jr. responded to Hamlin’s take and weighed in on the horsepower debate. The NASCAR Hall of Famer isn’t convinced that adding more horsepower is going to make much of a difference in the racing on short tracks.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. responds to Denny Hamlin’s comments

“I mean I love Denny’s honesty and I’m glad,” Earnhardt said. “If this is important to him and he believes that it will make a difference, I’d hope that he’d continue this argument. I can’t be sure that just adding horsepower is gonna make a big difference. But Denny drives the cars, and I would trust his feedback on that. And I’d certainly trust his feedback if he’s telling us about the cost being pretty much flat if you were to move from one horsepower to another — it wouldn’t change anything.

“Maybe there are some good reasons why NASCAR hasn’t done that, and maybe NASCAR has told us what those are, if we had to go back and dive into those comments from [NASCAR president Steve] Phelps and all those guys in the off-season and at Daytona, there was a lot of conversation around this. Denny makes it sound like there are no hurdles to getting there. Doug Yates, who builds the Fords, and all the Toyota guys, they all say they can go to 750 with no issue. And it can be before next weekend, right? It can be done overnight. And it wouldn’t change durability or anything or cost any additional money. I would love to see them give that a try at Martinsville.”

Dale Earnhardt Jr. calls for big change in NASCAR

As for what Earnhardt would change, it’s goes beyond horsepower. He would like to see NASCAR work on eliminating shifting from the sport.

“I’m telling you even with all of that [horsepower talk] I still want them to try and work on getting rid of the shifting,” Earnhardt said. “I do not think that even though they are getting to where it’s second nature to them to shift, having to drive into a corner and downshift and then do another shift on the next straightaway, doing that for every single corner, for 500 laps at Martinsville, right. That takes away from your processing on how to set the corner up, how to set up the car in front of you, how to make a difference in the corner.

“It’s such a distraction from what they really would love to be focusing on. And that is getting the car into the corner deeper and differently or trying to figure out a way to drive the corner uniquely to be able to set up a pass for the car in front of them. And so, I would love for them to continue to try and figure out a way to get the shifting out of the Ovals.”