August 4
The dust was flying under mainly sunny skies with some light rain falling on some of the later heats, but overall it was a beautiful 19°C in Bonnyville for opening night of the Bonnyville Chuckwagon Championship. For the first time since the professional chuckwagon races were resurrected in 2008, the Bonnyville races are featuring four wagons to a heat as opposed to three, and the championship will be decided through aggregate time instead of a winner take all championship final heat. When night one wrapped up, it was 2004 World Champion Chuckwagon Driver Rick Fraser who won top money and established a new track record on a new track as well.
Coming off barrel number 1 in heat number 7, Fraser, driving the Silver Concrete Ltd. outfit posted a time of 1:16.11 and placed first overall for the day by a mere 3 one-hundreds of a second over Kirk Sutherland who placed second on the night. Jason Glass, Luke Tournier and Evan Salmond rounded out the top five on the night. As the track has been altered, the day money run by Fraser is now the official track record, but still bettered Obrey Motowylo’s record of 1:16.15 set just last year.
The driver posting the best 4-day aggregate time after Sunday’s run will be declared the champion of the 2011 Bonnyville Chuckwagon Championship. Day 2 of the Bonnyville Chuckwagon Championship from Bonnyville can be heard live on Friday, August 5 starting at 7:00pm on Classic Country AM1060 out of Calgary, 890AM CJDC out of Dawson Creek and 99.7 FM The Wolf out of Bonnyville.
Billy Melville
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Day 1 Results
Rank Driver Sponsor Total Time
1 Rick Fraser* Silver Concrete Ltd. 1:16.11
2 Kirk Sutherland EMCO Corporation 1:16.14
3 Jason Glass Tuboscope of Canada 1:16.34
4 Luke Tournier Site Energy Services Ltd. 1:16.39
5 Evan Salmond Bonnyville Neighbourhood Inn 1:16.44
6/7 Hugh Sinclair Scorpion Industries 1:16.69
6/7 Layne MacGilIivray Moko Oilfield 1:16.69
8 Cody Ridsdale Prairie Tech Oilfield Services Ltd. 1:16.75
9 Obrey Motowylo H & E Oilfield Services Ltd. 1:16.92
10 Jerry Bremner Max Oilfield Services Inc. 1:16.98