Sometimes perfection isn’t quite good enough.
High River chuckwagon driver Jason Glass had what he called the perfect turn around the barrels on a mud-bog track in the Calgary Stampede Rangeland Derby final Sunday, but it wasn’t enough to get him in front of eventual champion Kirk Sutherland.
“I thought we had a picture perfect turn,” said Glass, who was coming off the two-barrel. “We started smooth. It’s what we had to do, but you just couldn’t run two-wide on the track tonight… I was able to out-barrel Kirk tonight, but not by enough.”
Sutherland was able to grab the rail and over-take Glass on the third turn for his first Stampede victory in his 25-year career at the Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth.
The veteran driver proved he had the horses.
His time of 1:16.74 was the fastest of the evening in the nine heats.
It was no fluke Sutherland had the one-barrel.
He had the best aggregate time after eight days of racing to not only win the prestigious Richard Cosgrave Memorial Award, but it gave him the first choice for his semifinal heat on Saturday.
When Sutherland had the fastest time of the two semifinal heats, he got to choose the one-barrel for the final.
Sutherland kept getting stronger as the 10-day show went on.
“I added one of my older horses in there and they just started getting better,” Sutherland said. “They just got better every night.”
He also ran clean helping him finish ahead of Glass in the aggregate.
“It’s unfortunately Jason had the penalty (outrider hit a barrel), but it’s teamwork,” Kirk said. “Our team turned out better than his and we got the one barrel and that’s all it took.
“It’s like Ralph Vigen always said the one-barrel is shorter.”
Sutherland received the Safe Driver Award for being the least penalized driver.
Glass would end up finishing third in the final dash with a time of 1:18.78. Sutherland’s son Mitch was right behind his father for second place at 1:17.80.
Vern Nolin had a no-time in the race as his team had an equipment malfunction coming off the four barrel.
Glass said he didn’t have a chance to get the rail and his horses eventually ran out of gas.
“(Being) Two wide, I used them up going into the first two corners trying to get a head of steam on them so they could keep running,” Glass said. “On a heavy track you need to let them relax and breath going down the backtrack, but I didn’t have time to do that.
“They were just out of air.”
Glass was all smiles despite finishing third.
“We had a phenomenal week — my horses never took a night off,” Glass said. “I think I put it together myself this week without any mistakes. If you take away that outrider penalty (on Thursday), I might have been on the one-barrel tonight.”
He’s not taking anything away from the man Stampede announcer Les McIntyre calls Captain Kirk.
“I give Kirk a ton of credit,” Glass said. “He works very hard at it, he has beautiful horses and he is a great driver.”
Okotoks’ Mark Sutherland was never able to recover from knocking over a barrel on July 4. He ended up finishing 12th in the aggregate.
“I was down a horse off my good outfit and I stuck a horse there that didn’t have a lot of experience,” Mark said. “He’s a nice horse, he just doesn’t have the experience.
“That’s the problem with the non-superstars, they don’t give you the same trip every day.”
The horse’s butt toppled the wagon, knocking Mark from sixth in the aggregate to 27th after four days.
“It was just an unfortunate thing that I should have corrected, and it cost me a chance at the championships,” he said. “I should have driven him around the barrels, but I didn’t. It’s that simple.”
He was able to battle back to 13th spot after eight days, not good enough to make the elite eight for the semifinals.
“I was climbing, if it’s a 12-day show maybe I would have made it, but it isn’t,” he said.
Mark would prove he has Stampede speed by turning the fourth and second fastest runs on Saturday and Sunday, respectively.
For more information go to wpca.com
