Cruise Bensmiller -First Career First Place Run On Night 4 At The Grande Prairie Stompede
Photo By Shellie Scott
It was a wet and cool night in Grande Prairie, Alberta, but it was a great night for rookie drivers as Night 4 of the Grande Prairie Stompede wound up on Saturday night. It was also the final night for the drivers to try and qualify for Sunday’s $35,000.00 Championship Final Heat and a shot at the 2022 Grande Prairie Stompede Championship. When the aggregate times were calculated Kirk Sutherland, Doug Irvine, Chad Fike and rookie driver Kale Lajeunesse will be the four drivers bidding for the championship.
Kirk Sutherland, driving the Hansen Ford outfit, qualified for Sunday’s final in first place overall with a four-day combined time of 5:11.59 and will receive the Ralph Vigen Memorial Award for having the best overall aggregate time, and a year’s use of a brand new GMC Truck compliments of Summit Fleet. Doug Irvine jumped from 7th place at the start of the day and qualified for Sunday’s championship final in second place overall. Chad Fike qualifyed in third place overall, with rookie driver Kale Lajeunesse jumping from 6th place overall into the fourth and final place in Sunday’s championship final. Ross Knight missed out of the final four, finishing fifth overall and missing the championship final by just 41 one-hundredths of a second. For Kale Lajeunesse, who is competing on a permit with the WPCA in 2022, it will be the first time the rookie driver has ever qualified for a championship final heat.
On the night, rookie driver Cruise Bensmiller was the day money winner from barrel one in the first heat. Bensmiller’s Farm Boys Oilfield Services Inc. outfit placed first on the day by 51 one-hundredths of a second over Chanse Vigen, with Kirk Sutherland, Kurt Bensmiller and Doug Irvine filling out the top five on the night.
The Finals of the Grande Prairie Stompede can be heard live on Sunday night, May 29, 2022 on Real Country 910 starting at 8:30pm Eastern, 7:30pm Central, 6:30pm Mountain Time. As well, fans can watch the races live on the Cowboy Channel + App streaming platform.
Billy Melville
