I remeber back in the day when "stock" was a 540 Mabuchi motor! Now that was stock! I agree with most of the posts about "Factory drivers" not running in stock but, most of them have motor sponsors, batt. sponsors, ect. They are sponsored to sell those product for the people they drive for. Being that the majority of us do race stock or 19t and not mod., they put their drivers in those classes to sell product, it's simple. You hardly ever here "Man my team XXXX mod motor ripped!" or "Man those batts really helped me win in Mod.!". That's because at that level of racing it's mostly about car set up and pure driving talent. This hobby is no different than any other competitive market, just like Nascar, win on Sunday - Sell on Monday!