By Laurence Heinen
After a decade of trying, Chad Fike finally has his first World Professional Chuckwagon Association victory under his belt.
Aboard his Al’s Contracting wagon, Fike sprinted to a first-place showing in the $25,000 final heat of the Dewberry World Chuckwagon Races last Sunday.
“I feel like that outfit’s deserved it for a couple years and they finally got the right barrel draw and were able to do the job,” said the 35-year-old reinsman from Cremona, Alta., who raced around the track in Dewberry in a penalty-free time of 1:09.09 to beat second-place finisher Vern Nolin by 49/100ths of a second.
After finishing atop the two-day aggregate standings with a combined time of 2:19.02, which was 3/10ths of a second better than Nolin, Fike had the best odds to draw the No. 1 barrel for Sunday’s final, which is exactly what he did.
“I knew if we ever got the one barrel with them, they’d be pretty tough to beat,” he said in regards to his top outfit that consists of horses Legend and Cowboy as his lead team along with Rocco and Bro as his wheelers.
Fike put his dream team of thoroughbreds together prior to last season and they helped him qualify for final heats at the Grande Prairie Stompede, the Medicine Hat Exhibition and Stampede as well as the season-ending Century Downs Racetrack and Casino Winners’ Zone Championship.
“We made three dashes with them, but we kept drawing the three barrel every dash we made,” recalled Fike, who raced to a trio of third-place showings on his way to finishing in sixth spot in last season’s World Chuckwagon Driver Standings.
Although Fike missed last year’s edition of the Dewberry World Chuckwagon Races, he’s happy he fit the event into his 2023 schedule.
“I had some work commitments last year and wasn’t able to make it up here, which is too bad,” said Fike, who was named the WPCA’s Top Rookie Driver in 2013 before also taking hope the Orville Strandquist Memorial Award as the Calgary Stampede’s top freshman two years later. “It’s a great committee up here and they do a lot of work. They put on a fabulous show. I was happy to come back this year because in 2021, this show alone basically saved our season by kicking it off with our first show of the year. It was nice to give back to the Dewberry community.”
On the first two go-rounds of the three-night show, Fike decided to give his top outfit a rest and instead hooked up some of his younger horses.
“I had three second-year horses and two horses in their first races and they obviously did really good to win us the aggregate,” said Fike, who originally planned on giving his vets the weekend off. “Once we made the dash, we decided we’d go with them. They were feeling pretty good and playing in the pen and stuff. They needed to run anyways, so we went with them.”
Fike also had a couple horses that were new to his outriding pen and he credited outriders Trey MacGillivray and Tyler DeSutter for their hard work to keep things running smoothly up in Dewberry.
“I’m pretty proud of them guys because it’s not easy taking new horses on such a short track, so they did a good job for us,” said Fike, who commended MacGillivray for his work riding Spinner and DeSutter for his calming influence on Voodoo. “They were huge for me this week. Not only was I sending new horses on my wagon outfit, I was sending new horses behind.
“I’ve got a deep barn of very nice horses. It’s a game trying to put all the pieces of the puzzle together, but that’s why I feel this show is important to figure out some of those things and I feel like we did that. We’re pretty proud of our young horses.”
After finally securing his first WPCA show victory, Fike will be riding a wave of confidence heading into the 2023 Medicine Hat Exhibition and Stampede that runs from Thursday to Sunday.
“We’ve had some good luck there over the years, so I always look forward to that one as well,” said Fike, who finished third in last year’s championship dash behind Kris Molle and Doug Irvine. “We were up against some good competition there inside of us.”
Molle beat out Irvine at the finish line by just 5/100ths of a second for his first of three show titles last season.
“That was a close race, that one,” said Molle, who sped to victory aboard his Benoit Oilfield Construction Ltd. rig off of barrel No. 2. “The horses came home strong and I was able to come around (Irvine) just coming into the infield there and we were able to get the edge on him. The horses were feeling good, running strong, so they kept that momentum up for us going through the rest of the season.”
The win was extra special for Molle seeing as how his son Kaeden served as one of his outriders along with Brendan Nolin.
“That was a pretty good and exciting, especially on Father’s Day last year and I had my son holding leaders for me, so that was a pretty special moment to pull off a first win on the WPCA,” said Molle, who went on to win the Calgary Stampede Cowboys Rangeland Derby and the Century Downs Racetrack and Casino Winners’ Zone Championship. “It gives you confidence that you’re able to compete at that level and then lucky enough to beat ’em.”
