Press Release –
It was fitting that in hockey-mad Canada, Polaris ice oval racer Dustin Wahl scored a hat trick.
The Greenbush, Minnesota, racer won the Pro Champ class – the premiere class at the Valcourt (Quebec) Grand Prix – three times in three days, establishing him as the most successful racer on ice during the February 15-17 racing.
Polaris racers also dominated in the Pro and Semi-Pro Formula 500 classes. Serge Ouellet finished first and second in each class over three days of racing and Jocelyn Perrault won Semi-Pro Formula 500 on February 15. Polaris racers filled at least six of the top 10 positions in all four Formula 500 races run at the Grand Prix.
But the big story of the weekend in Valcourt was Wahl’s dominance in the Pro Champ class. Valcourt is to Ski-doo what Roseau, Minnesota, is to Polaris: The home town and still the site of a major engineering and production facility.
So the folks in Valcourt take their ice oval racing seriously, and they like to see racers on the hometown brand win – especially in the high-profile classes.
But Wahl, the 2007 Snow Week magazine Racer of the Year, had his Polaris-powered Wahl Bros. Special dialed in, and he swept all three Pro Champ races, earning the unbridled respect of even the most loyal Ski-doo fans.
Wahl’s teammate Brandon Johnson kept getting better throughout the weekend, but didn’t quite earn a spot on the podium. Johnson finished sixth, fifth and fourth, respectively, on Friday through Sunday.
