2023 WCAN – Day 1

By Billy Rainford

Practice started the day before we got to racing at the 2023 Western Canadian Amateur Nationals (WCAN) at Whispering Pines in Kamloops, BC. I think they set a record for high temperature in the city this afternoon! The van dashboard said it was 36C on the way home this evening!

Here’s a look at the winners of the first motos at Day 1 on Thursday:

#17 Sawyer Saunders from Sechelt, BC had #400 Zachery Pollen on his rear fender but he would go down allowing Sawyer to get away to a big lead and the win in the 50 (4-6) class.
#936 Peyton Belisle took a pretty convincing win in the Girls (9-16) class.
#don’t 518 Parker Hatt from Calgary got out front and stayed there ahead of #55 Cruze Gordon in 65 Open. They were also 1-2 in the 65 (10-11) moto.
#3 Scott Donkersgoed got the Vet Junior holeshot on Maff’s bike and held off a solid charge by #121 Shane Ferguson.
Then Shawn Maffenbeier went out and won the Vet Master class ahead of Kaven Benoit, Brock Hoyer, Davey Fraser, and Tylar Craig.
#56 Blake Davies took the win in 250 Intermediate ahead of #600 Noah Porter and #52 Brock Henry who closed right in at the flag.
250 Junior had two heats and #and 517 Asher Brown took Heat 1 ahead of #75 Mars Millar.
#50 Wyatt Hasil made a couple passes to take the Heat 2 win ahead of #91 Talin Fox.
#19 Deagan Gibney won 65 (7-9) ahead of #114 Ryan Taylor and #728 Baelen Macklem.
#409 Brennan Schofield crashed hard and took a trip to the medics tent. He hit his head pretty hard and will likely be out the rest of the week and re-evaluate things heading into the Pro National.
#3 Shawn Maffenbeier is fast in Kamloops but he’s also had a couple of his worst injuries here. He got out front and stayed there in Pro Am moto 1.
#64 Ryder McNabb was 2nd with a gap back to #22 Tyler Gibbs, #25 Daniel Elmore, and #26 Julien Benek.
#19 Wyatt Kerr got taken out by #441 Jyire Mitchell as payback for a move on Saturday in Edmonton. They were both cool with it and now they’ve agreed they are even.
We gave #43 Clayton Schmucki the first ‘Ryno Power Canada Privateer Performance of the Week’ of the season for Edmonton. Check out our short interview with him on our Instagram page.
#48 Jayden Riley took the 85 (12-16) first moto win after a red flag restart.
I must have missed something because I had #312 Kade Dupuis with the win in the 50 Open moto but I see that #555 Dallas Pankoff got the win.
#1 Braxton Zeitner was the winner of the 85 (7-11) first moto ahead of #213 Hayden Dupuis.
Wyatt Hasil also took the win in the Schoolboy 2 class after a nice battle with #930 Liam Dodd.
#64 Ryder McNabb was the obvious winner in the Under 30 class. The defending 250 MX Champ crossed the flag ahead of #18 Parker Eales and #187 Layne Nuyens.
One of the better battles of the day was between #120 Jim Frederickson and #20 Shane Cuthbertson in the Plus 40 class. They went back and forth with Jim getting away in the end and Shane closing again.
#100 Sienna Brown battled #1 Eve Brodeur for the Ladies holesot. Eve went down early and dropped to 7th, letting #36 Avrie Berry and #109 Annalyse Lopushinski get away out front. Eve closed in and managed to take an impressive come-from-behind win.
The last moto of Day 1 was the Schoolboy class. #1 Tanner Scott looked very comfortable out front ahead of #48 Jayden Riley and #66 Drew Roberts.

The Surron race was Thursday evening at 7 and we’ve got 5 moto 1’s to get through Friday Morning.

Full results HERE.

See you at the…1 and 2 and 1 and 2…races…