“The Car Sucks” Kevin Harvick Rips Into NASCAR’s Next Gen Car

What’s Happening?

NASCAR legend Kevin Harvick did not hold back on NASCAR’s Next Gen car and horsepower dilemma when reflecting on this past weekend’s race at Iowa Speedway during the latest episode of Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour Podcast.

Following Sunday’s race at Iowa Speedway, NASCAR fans took to the internet to express their displeasure with William Byron’s fuel mileage victory. While some planted conspiracy theories that NASCAR and the network were playing up fuel savings, others returned to criticizing NASCAR’s Generation Seven, or Next Gen, car.

Among these was future NASCAR Hall of Famer and FOX Sports Analyst Kevin Harvick, who opened the latest episode of his podcast, Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour, by saying, “The car sucks.”

The 2014 NASCAR Cup Series champion did not stop there, of course, continuing by stating how frustrating it is that the car cannot make passes within the confines of a short track.

“It’s not fun to see the car not be able to pass like it needs to be. And it turned into a fuel mileage, track position race, and that part I don’t like.” — Kevin Harvick

Harvick’s hopelessness continued with claims that he fears NASCAR is failing to make progress in fixing the issue, saying, “It doesn’t seem like we’re making any ground on making it better.”

After each short track race this season, a large portion of the fanbase has often harmonized about one change in particular: an increase in horsepower, something that NASCAR is eyeing for the short track package.

“It Seems Like Just a PR Ploy to Me”

NASCAR officials are open about their ongoing meetings with stakeholders to do so. NASCAR Senior Vice President of Competition Elton Sawyer recently claimed that an increase at short tracks is “a 2026 initiative to get that across the line.”

Harvick is on board with this movement after this past weekend. For the 49-year-old, one of the most glaring issues this weekend was how slow the Cup Series cars were, including the fact that the ARCA Menards Series cars were faster.

“The Cup cars need to go way faster, especially at the short tracks, and I don’t think that there was anything more evident than this weekend. The ARCA out qualified the Cup car, and it was extremely difficult to pass.” — Kevin Harvick

It is unlikely that NASCAR will return to the ‘glory days’ of 900 or 1000 HP packages. The idea often floated is to try upping the current package to around 750 HP, a number that Doug Yates, CEO of Roush Yates Engines, claimed in May “wouldn’t be much of a change” for engine manufacturers.

While Harvick agrees that horsepower needs to increase, he clarifies that a small nudge from the current 650 HP to 670 HP package will not be as much help as advertised. “I think when you look at the short tracks and road courses, having too much power, I’d air to that side, because there’s just no reason that the Cup cars should be the slowest thing there on the weekend,” Harvick said.

He even suggested that NASCAR going through the process of looking into a horsepower increase and even giving the cars a small increase is a PR stunt, saying, “It seems like just a PR ploy to me.”

However, Harvick states that the teams are just as much to blame for the lagging horsepower as NASCAR, saying that “they’re posturing to try to get the best situation for their manufacturer.”

Though NASCAR is receiving praise for its pursuit of a higher horsepower package, veterans like Harvick are already downplaying the effects a slight change will have on the racing product, meaning the horsepower debate could be far from over.

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