Last Saturday at Bowman Gray Stadium, Derek Stoltz put on one of the most dominating performances in the history of the annual 100 lap race for the Sportsman (Limited Late Model) cars. He set fast time and virtually destroyed the field en route to an easy win in the biggest race for the division of the season. But when it was all said and done, he didn’t take the trophy home as nearly some two hours later, he was stripped of his victory for a rules infraction with his carburetor. He vowed to never return, but now he has a lot to say about what happened and his return this weekend.

Corey Latham: So, it’s been a few days now, what’s your feelings on what happened?

Derek Stoltz: Well, the question was… was the carb wrong? Yes, yes it was. I’ve told everyone I’ve talked to that. When I say it was “wrong”, I’m talking about a hair, a fraction of light. Did I know it? Hell no. Has it ever been checked this way before? Hell no. Is it in the rulebook to be done like this? Hell no. Last year, I won five races with that carb; the year before I won a championship with it, all the wins back to 2008 was done on that carb. They used a flashlight to check it with and they pulled the base off of mine and never did it to anyone else’s. And it’s the same carb that’s checked every year and found to be legal, for numerous years, and now all of a sudden it’s not, and we haven’t done anything different to it.

CL: Why did it take nearly 2 hours for them to come to this conclusion?

DS: Dude, I honestly have no clue. To tell you the truth I thought it was longer than that. I guess they were waiting on confirmation from upstairs. Gray (Garrison, track promoter) came down and said he had to stand by his officials which is fine, I can respect that, it was wrong… by THEIR check. But like I’ve said, it was teched on tech day and passed without batting an eye, there was no reason why it wouldn’t.

CL: So to you, the “carb” is not what won the race?

DS: You were there, you saw it. I’ll tell anyone that walks in that gate, get a car that turns like that #02 in the center of the corner, they ain’t going to beat it. I’ll put a 1-barrel on it and start 15th every week, and that’s the honest truth.

CL: So you’re taking a “no-holds barred” attitude into Friday?

DS: I’m going to have a real good time Friday Corey (laughing).

CL: This whole deal was odd. I heard fans complain and saying things, but I never really heard any of your competitors say much sideways about anything in the time leading up to the DQ?

DS: Ehhhh, you won’t. And I didn’t really argue with anyone about the whole deal. I just asked questions. Even asked the other drivers while we were sitting in the room, what is the rule? We have to have some kind of baseline to go by just like the piston on a motor, there has to be guidelines for everything. Tech day they checked it thoroughly, it was great, good to go. I’ve been running it the whole time I’ve been racing, been beat plenty of times, I guess they’ll have to take my championship away since it’s the only carb I’ve used. But until they give some baseline of something to go by, who’s right and who’s wrong? Who will be wrong next week? It might not be Derek.

It was wrong… by the way THEY checked it. Have they ever checked anything that way before? No. Did I even know there was that kind of a check? Heck no. I don’t know anything about carburetors, people build carburetors and I build race cars.

CL: What about how dominating the car was? You know the old saying; if you beat them to death on the track they will beat you in tech.

DS: That is just an attribute to how good that car is in the corners. We have found grip there that no one has found. I’ve talked with the drivers I beat Saturday and they all said the same thing, you can tell what is beating you on a race track. I’ve got a brother that is one of the sharpest guys there, my cousin Ethan has drove there and works for a Cup team, we have all the tools we need. If the motor breaks, starter comes out, transmission fails, I work on cars for a living, we all can fix it right there at home. We have the total package, that’s not being cocky, that’s straight up.

The money you have teams now to get a setup in their car, we are using that money to buy better parts, get better shocks, better bearings and whatever we need. We put the money where it should go, not for someone else to do like so many other teams do today.

CL: How many carburetors are you bringing this week?

DS: I’m going to bring three or four and let them check them as they see fit. Funny thing is that people don’t realize is how big of a POS that carb really was. I’m bringing some that will be better than that one, so it might be even better this week. This is a new Foley motor in the car and I just got a brand new one back that’s sitting on stands right now, and it’s my better motor, the car is ready to rock. If they find something this week we know something is really wrong, heck I could just stand and point at other cars and find stuff, some cars are running 11 inch wheels, but oh well.

If they try to find something wrong, oh well, we are out of the points now anyway so we will just come back and kick ass again. It kind of sucks though because unlike 2012 when I won the championship, I had to ride and not take chances; it’s easy to win it like that. This year we have a good enough car I can drive around them on the outside and just win races instead of being in the middle of all that foolishness. I feel we could win it with a few races to go, but now we are just here for fun….and trophies… Friday night should be exciting, we are going to show them something.