Marty Ladwig Interview by NHRA

Marty Ladwig qualified number one in Hot Rod with his '04 Sunfire running 8.331-seconds at 173.23 mph. He won the race defeating Gary Gardella, set Low ET at 8.205 seconds, and Top Speed at 175.32 mph.



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Contact: NHRA Communications, (626) 914-4761

MARTY LADWIG

Marty Ladwig moved with his family from Okinawa, Japan to the United States when he was 10. Because of his father's position with the NSA as an intelligence analyst, the next two decades they would continue to relocate, going from California to Illinois, then El Paso, Texas, finally settling in San Antonio. After graduating high school, he began racing his Firebird and motorcycles, as a local bracket racer at Alamo Dragway, San Antonio Raceway and Temple Academy Raceway. Despite loving his time on bikes he decided to turn strictly to cars in 2001, when he was hired by General Motors to be one of their factory drivers for the Sunfire program. He became the first domestic Hot Rod driver to eclipse the nine-second barrier, with an 8.928-second pass at Sonoma, Calif. in 2002 and finished fifth in the NHRA point standings that season. Last year, his team improved by leaps and bounds, winning four races, qualifying No. 1 five times and capturing the NHRA Hot Rod championship. That fantastic string of success has continued into this season, with Ladwig taking home the "Wally" trophy at three of the first five races and setting the class E.T. record with an 8.184-second run at Englishtown, N.J. in May. He is truly living "the life."

Q: How did you like growing up in San Antonio and what's the racing scene like there?
LADWIG: "This is where my parents decided to live and where my father's job was. It's a pretty nice city. I didn't like it when I first moved here, but once I started traveling around and could see it I began to like it more and more. There is a lot of things to do, traffic is not bad, there's not a lot of crime, so it's pretty cool. There are two drag strips here; one is really nice, modeled after the Texas Motorplex. It's pretty new and really one of the best facilities in the country. There is a lot of drag racing that goes on around here."

Q: What's it like working for GM, and have you been pleased with the development that has come from the program in the last three years?
LADWIG: "Working for GM and being sponsored by Pontiac is a dream come true for me. I've always been into Pontiacs, even before I started racing in the Sport Compact Series. We started out with a stock Sunfire, with all the glass in it, the full interior and it weighed 2,800 lbs. That was the car we raced in the Hot Rod class the first year and got it to run 10.08 at 132 mph, which was pretty good considering how much it weighed. From there, we built another car using all of the things we learned from that one. We ran that in 2003. Then for this season, we were able to incorporate all of the things we have learned from both of those cars. It's a step by step progression, finding out what works and what doesn't work and the main purpose for being involved is to promote the Ecotec Engine and the Pontiac Sunfire. Also, we are trying to promote the grass routes level of racing, to develop parts that work on the race car so we can label them and sell them down the road."

Q: That's the goal for GM, what's the goal for you?
LADWIG: "I love to race and to get the chance to be a factory drag racer and live the lifestyle can't be beat. It's the same thing for all the other drivers out there."

Q: What are your thoughts on the Hot Rod class and the improvements that all the other teams are making, creating a lot of competition this season?
LADWIG: "Everyone is running strong and you can tell that everyone has what they need to go fast, they are just trying to get the right package and combination going. You can never underestimate anybody. Gary Gardella has gone just as fast as we have and there are people that have gone more mile-per-hour then we have, several times, so you can't count anybody out once they get dialed-in. I expect everybody to figure things out, and most already have."

Q: You mention Gardella, who beat you in Atco, N.J. a couple of months ago. Is there a rivalry starting to develop?
LADWIG: "With Gary, there is a rivalry. He always seems to step up his game when he faces me, and put the pressure on me when I know I have to run him. We definitely check the reaction times when we get to the end of the track so we can compare the two. We don't even worry about the E.T., we just want to know who had the better reaction. It's a good rivalry and I definitely try to step-up my game when I face him. Also, he's the fastest import brand and we're the fastest domestic, so there is a rivalry there as well."

Q: What's it like being the team to beat?
LADWIG: "It's great to be running as fast as we are, but you never know what is going to happen. We are always trying to do our best and have the best prepared car, and I try to do my job and represent Pontiac well. I try to promote what GM is trying to do with the Ecotec Engine and Pontiac Sunfire and I truly believe that we have made a big difference in how people view the engine. When we first started the program nobody even knew what it was, even people that were familiar with GM products. Now it goes hand-in-hand with Sport Compact racing and people know what it is, how much power it puts out and what it's capable of."