June 10 – 11, 2006 - Denver

We Win Denver!

It’s a great feeling to finally have our first win of the season. We’ve been doing well throughout the season but haven’t been able to put it all together until now. It was an awesome weekend with great weather and a large crowd.

We ended up qualified 3rd with an 8.05. We might have run better but we had an engine fire during the 2nd round of qualifying that singed some wires and hoses that caused some problems. We were able to get everything fixed but wouldn’t have been able to race on Sunday unless we found some new fire bottles. Luckily we were able to buy some from the Scranton Brothers Pro RWD team so were ready to race.

For the first round we had to run Bryan Jimenez. It was a really important round because Bryan was 2 points ahead of us for the championship. We had a good light and ran strong until the end of the runwhen the engine shut off. Luckily Bryan had problems of his own and we were able to get the win.

Round 1
W/L Driver         Car                            RT      ET   Speed
(W) Marty Ladwig   Lucas Oil 2006 Chevy Cobalt    0.096  8.923 138.27
(L) Brian Jimenez  Everyone's Mortgage/GM Racing  0.387 10.741  76.09

For the 2nd round of eliminations we had to run Gary Gardella. Gary ran a seven in qualifying so we knew we had to run strong. We replaced some of the wiring harness and hoped that fixed the problem of the engine shutting off. We had another good light and the car ran strong all the way through for the win.

Semifinals
W/L Driver         Car                            RT   ET   Speed
(W) Marty Ladwig   Lucas Oil 2006 Chevy Cobalt  0.073 8.017 184.88
(L) Gary Gardella  DuPont/Hot Hues 2006 Chevy   0.133 8.423 179.37

In the final round we had to run #1 qualifier Jason Hunt in the Cobalt that I drove last year for GM. His Cobalt is a full tube chassis car with more power and a clutchless shift sequential transmission, so we had our work cut out for us.

He qualified with a 7.58 so we had to try and turn up the boost. We had a decent light while Jason had a really good light. During the run our tires where spinning all the way down the track and cost us some ET. Jason had apparently hurt his motor the round before and let off early in the run. Joy at the finish line!

Final
W/L Driver         Car                            RT   ET   Speed
(W) Marty Ladwig   Lucas Oil 2006 Chevy Cobalt  0.115 8.166 183.32
(L) Jason Hunt     Matco Tools '06 Cobalt       0.057 12.133 106.49

With the win we have moved within one round of the points lead for the Championship.

Current Pro FWD Points

Special thanks to all of our sponsors, especially Lucas Oil. Our Ecotec engine and Hydramatic transmission has run strong for 2 full races in the car with out any problems.

The Mountain Madness NHRA Sport Compact Nationals will be telecast on ESPN2 on Sunday, June 25 at 2 a.m. and re-telecast on Sunday, June 29 at 5 p.m.

The next NHRA Xplōd Sport Compact Racing Series event will be the Las Vegas NHRA Sport Compact Nationals and D1 Grand Prix at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in Las Vegas on July 14-15.