Elkinton breaks through with victory at San Angelo Rodeo
Courtesy PRCA

 
SAN ANGELO, Texas – Until this year, Dusty Elkinton had never competed much outside the Great Lakes Circuit and remains a guy who doesn’t spend a lot of time logging onto the Internet to find out where he stands and how much he’s earned.

“My coach at Fort Scott (Kan.) Community College always told us to pay attention to business, ride the best you can, and all the rest of it will take care of itself,” Elkinton said.

The thing is, Elkinton just won the San Angelo (Texas) Rodeo – the biggest win of his seven-year PRCA career – and that came after a nice paycheck at Denver and a second-place finish in Perry, Ga. He’s starting to move up the standings. People are starting to notice and ask questions about the bull rider.

 So, here’s a spoiler alert, Dusty: a financial update is coming right up. With the $5,177 he won at the San Angelo Coliseum this weekend, Elkinton nearly doubled his earnings for the year to $11,568 and moved from 39^th in the world standings to 21^st.

This already stands as the finest season of his career, surpassing 2009, when he won $8,858.19 in regional competition to finish 127^th in the world standings.

“My travel partner, Matt Pojanowski, and I went into the first of the year with our goal to make it to the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo together,” Elkinton said. “I’ve never gone for it before. I’d compete for a while, and if I got tight on funds, I’d head home (to Moundville, Mo.).

“It’s great to have a good start like this. It gives me a little financial cushion, and my confidence is up. Things are going well, and I want to just roll with it.”

Elkinton tied for eighth in the first round at San Angelo with an 82-point ride, and then came back in the finals to earn 88 points on Cervi Championship Rodeo’s Multi-Chem Blade to win the round also the average by five points over Dylan Werner, the only other competitor with two qualified rides.

Pojanonowski had been bucked off Blade in the first round, and because Elkinton always makes it a point to watch his travel partner’s outings, he had a pretty good idea what to expect when he drew the bull on Feb. 28.

“Blade went out to the left and then back right, just like he had with Matt, so I was ready for it. I was able to make the adjustments I needed to, and the ride turned out awesome.”

Long-time team roping partners Travis Tryan and Michael Jones earned $9,829 each at San Angelo and moved to the top of the world standings – the only change atop the leaderboard this week. They completed four runs in 20.4 seconds to hold off the runner-up pairing of Derrick Begay and Cesar de la Cruz by 1.1 seconds.

Tryan and Jones have season earnings of $24,695 each, more than $5,000 ahead of last week’s leaders, header Colby Siddoway and heeler Matt Zancanella.

Justin Maass held the distinction of earning the most money in San Angelo, banking $10,691 after placing in three of four rounds and winning the tie-down roping average with a total time of 37.2 seconds. He edged Seth Childers by four-tenths of a second and seven-time World Champion Tie-Down Roper Fred Whitfield by five-tenths.

The windfall moved Maas from ninth to fourth in the world standings.
The other champions at the San Angelo Rodeo were bareback rider Dusty LaValley (243 points on three head), steer wrestler Kyle Hughes (15.9 seconds on four head), saddle bronc rider Sam Spreadborough (167 points on two head), reigning World Champion Barrel Racer Brittany Pozzi (43.13 seconds on three runs) and reigning World Champion Steer Roper Rocky Patterson (42.8 seconds on three head).

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