Obrey Motowylo – Best On Night One In Grande Prairie
Photo By Shellie Scott
The professional chuckwagon season kicked off on Wednesday night with the 43rd running of the Grande Prairie Stompede Championship in Grande Prairie, Alberta. Doug Irvine came into this year’s event as both the defending Grande Prairie champion, and Layne MacGillivray starts the season as the defending World Champion Chuckwagon Driver.
Weather conditions were cool 18°C under partly cloudy skies with some afternoon rains that made racetrack conditions a little off, but some good races were seen by the Grande Prairie chuckwagon fans on opening night of the professional chuckwagon season nonetheless. When the night wrapped up it was two-time Grande Prairie Champion Obrey Motowylo who ended up with the top time of the night with a penalty free run of 1:17.47.
Coming off barrel number 1 in heat number 11, Motowylo, driving the Dynamic Energy Group Inc. outfit placed first overall for the day by 1.01 seconds over Rae Croteau who placed 2nd overall for the night. Evan Salmond and Jason Glass placed third and fourth respectively, with Kurt Bensmiller rounding out the top 5 for the night. The top five drivers on the night are all former Grande Prairie Stompede Champions.
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 compliments of Summit Fleet and the Grande Prairie Stompede. 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 Grande Prairie Stompede Championship.
Day two of the Grande Prairie Stompede can be heard live Thursday night, June 1, 2023 on Real Country 910 starting at 7:00pm Mountain Time. As well, fans can watch the races live on the watch.wpca.com streaming platform.
Billy Melville
