Cruise Bensmiller – 1st Place On First Night In Grande Prairie
Photo By Shellie Scott
The start of the 2024 chuckwagon season kicked off on Wednesday night with the 41st running of the Grande Prairie Stompede. Chanse Vigen came into this year’s event as both the defending Grande Prairie Stompede Champion, and the reigning World Champion Chuckwagon Driver.
Weather conditions were cool and wet, racetrack conditions were sloppy, but given the less than ideal weather conditions, some very good chuckwagon races were seen by the Grande Prairie fans on opening night of the professional chuckwagon season nonetheless. When the night wrapped up it was Cruise Bensmiller who opened up the 2024 season with the fast time of the night with a fast run of 1:19.59.
Coming off barrel number 3 in heat number 3, Bensmiller, driving the Bonnetts Energy Corp. outfit placed first overall for the day by just 4 one-hundredths of a second over two-time Grande Prairie Stompede Champion Obrey Motowylo who placed 2nd overall for the night. 2022 Grande Prairie Stompede Champion Doug Irvine placed third, while Chad Fike and Jamie Laboucane rounded out the top five on opening night. Chanse Vigen, driving in the 10th heat, upset his wagon and received a no time.
The top wagon in the aggregate after Saturday’s run will receive the Ralph Vigen Memorial Award and the use of a new GMC Truck for one year courtesy of Summit Fleet. The top 4 drivers in the aggregate after Saturday night will go into the championship final heat on Sunday where the winner will receive a big winner’s cheque and the 2024 Grande Prairie Stompede Championship.
Day two of the Grande Prairie Stompede can be heard live Thursday night, on New Country 910 starting at 9:00pm Eastern, 8:00pm Central, 7:30pm Mountain Time.
Billy Melville
