HIGH RIVER -- Most chuckwagon newcomers spend the better part of a decade building their barn.
Obrey Motowylo felt he could be competitive in half that time. He was right.
Last fall, Motowylo capped his third season on the WPCA circuit by punching his ticket to Calgary's Rangeland Derby.
"It's very exciting," Motowylo said. "I can't wait. It took a lot of hard work to get there.
"I basically built these outfits from scratch. I didn't buy broke outfits. These are my own boys I've been training and bringing up. I bought a couple of horses off other guys, who they didn't get along with.
"But, basically this has been built from the ground up. They're all young horses, too. So, hopefully if everything stays sound and healthy, they should be around for a lot of years."
Motowylo, who finished 16th on the Dodge Pro Tour last year, took day money on opening night at the North American Chuckwagon Championship in High River.
That big run put his H & E Oilfield Services rig in fifth place on the world charts.
He was 17th last night when he stopped the clock in 1:19.51.
Tim Haroldson (The Shriners Hospital for Children) took top spot with a 1:16.92, followed by hometown driver Jason Glass (Perma Insurance Cooperators; 1:17:69).
Jerry Bremner (Chariot Express) was third and took over the lead in the aggregate standings.
"Ever since I started racing, all I want to be is first," Motowylo said. "And I won't quit until I'm number one. That's just the way it is ... It doesn't matter how strong my outfits are, if I find a horse that'll power them up, I'll go after it."
The former pony chucks driver has more than 150 show championships to his name and is looking forward to adding his first trophy buckle with the thoroughbreds to his case.
Motowylo, who will turn 37 Canada Day, also won day money on the final day of the last tour stop in Medicine Hat.
But he said his top outfit actually works better when it has another wagon in front of it.
"Everything worked well, and the time was a lot quicker than what I thought," he said of Night 1 in High River.
"It's an outfit that loves to chase. When they're on the lead off the barrels, they don't seem to go as hard.
"They like to spot somebody and then catch them. (Thursday night), when I rounded that fourth turn, they still had two more gears. They really beared down and ran."
Motowylo joined the northern WCA circuit in 2004. After one year on the CPCA tour, he went to the WPCA runoff.
"I went to the runoff with my own horses," he said. "The way I figured it, if I wasn't good enough to make it on my own, I shouldn't be there.
"I squeaked in, got a nucleus of horses and then built on it."
Motowylo has two of the hardest-running outfits on the Dodge Pro circuit this season.
"The outfits are a year older, although there's a brand new horse on the outfit that ran Thursday night," he said.
"My second hook is basically all second-year horses and one first-year horse."
He said he won't rest them in Ponoka next week, leading into his Calgary debut.
"I've had a gameplan from Day 1 of training," he said.
"If you can call them my top hook, they run off the one and two barrels, and my young hook runs off of three and four. I'm going to keep going with that for now.
"In Calgary, if I'm in tough with somebody and I have to run the good hook an extra night, I guess I will. But right now, I just want to keep them going. They're feeling good."
On the air
Catch all the action from Night 3 of the North American Chuckwagon Championship tonight at 7:30 p.m. on AM910.
SCOTT.FISHER@SUNMEDIA.CA
