Cheyenne Frontier Days offers free gas to some rodeo competitors

Dozens of cowgirls and cowboys who compete in professional rodeo competitions will have a little more ease in their finances thanks to Cheyenne Frontier Days. Working alongside some business sponsors, Cheyenne Frontier Days has worked to secure thousands of dollars in free gasoline for some of their rodeo contestants.  

Wrangler, ResistAll and Cheyenne Frontier Days partnered to make sure those who qualified for the rodeo but did not advance to final rounds were thanked for their time at the rodeo. 

"The cowboys that don't advance out of the quarter finals into the semifinals can download the Sinclair app and they get a $105 of free gas at some Sinclair locations," said Chad Mathews, Rodeo Chairman for Cheyenne Frontier Days. 

Mathews told CBS4's Dillon Thomas the decision to gift free gas to the former competitors is just one way Cheyenne Frontier Days is working to make sure they set the standard for rodeos.  

"We all know the price of fuel is astronomical. These guys, with the format we have, we ask them to go home and come back and go home and come back. There is a lot of fuel involved in that. Anything we can do to help those guys out would be nice," Mathews said.  

This was the first year that CFD offered such an incentive to the contestants who did qualify for competition. Many spend the days leading up to Cheyenne Frontier Days not only trying out in Cheyenne, but then also driving to other rodeos to try and qualify before returning to Wyoming.  

While it hasn't been decided if the offer will become a regular fixture of Cheyenne Frontier Days, Mathews said he hoped there would be a way to do this again as the rodeo continues.  

"We want to continue this going forward. We would like to make this a standard for everybody," Mathews said.  

CBS News Colorado is a proud media sponsor of Cheyenne Frontier Days.