Chanse Vigen – Dominating Performance After 3 Nights At The Ponoka Stampede
Photo By Shellie Scott
It was a cloudy Thursday night in Ponoka, but once again the racing was outstanding and the near capacity crowd certainly got top entertainment bang for their buck. Once again, and for an unheard of third consecutive night, 2023 Grande Prairie Stompede Champion Chanse Vigen posted the fast time of the night with a 1:14.13.
Coming off barrel number 2 in the 8th heat, Vigen – driving the Wentworth Oilfield Services Ltd. outfit – placed first on the night by 1.02 seconds over Chad Fike who placed second on the night. Layne MacGillivray and Evan Salmond who split third and fourth on the night with Jason Glass filling out the top five on night three.
With three consecutive first place runs, Chanse Vigen’s dominance so far has him over four and a half seconds in front of his nearest competitor after three nights. Vigen’s three-run total of 3:42.14 is and unprecedented 4.55 second ahead of reigning World Champion Chuckwagon Driver Layne MacGillivray, with Jamie Laboucane, Codey McCurrach and Kris Molle rounding out the top five overall after three runs. Evan Salmond, Chad Fie and Ross Knight complete the top 8, with Jason Glass and Wade Salmond nipping at their heels looking for a birth in Saturday’s semi-final round with just one run to go to try and earn a spot.
The top 8 in the aggregate after Friday night’s run will go into the semi-final round on Saturday night in heats 7 and 9. The top 4 times from the semi-final round on July 1 will go into the $75,000.00 Tommy Dorchester Sudden Death Championship final heat where the winner will take home the 2023 Ponoka Stampede Championship..
Day 4 of the Ponoka Stampede can be heard on Friday night, June 29, 2023 on WPCA Radio starting 7:30pm Mountain time on Real Country 910am, and can be watched live on the watch.wpca.com streaming platform.
Billy Melville
