CHEYENNE — For rideshare drivers with Uber and Lyft, Cheyenne Frontier Days is an annual pilgrimage to pick up extra cash.
Some report earning a few hundreds of dollars over the first weekend of the 2024 CFD, others as much as $1,200.
The money is so good that some part-time drivers take off from their day jobs. Others do driving full-time but come from hundreds of miles away to make big money in Cheyenne.
In the first weekend of the two-week festival, Wyomingites came out of the woodwork from Casper, Gillette, Rocks Springs, Montana and Colorado to make fast money.
“I’m going to do this morning, noon and night,” said Robert Johnson, a Lyft driver in Cheyenne who picked up riders from across the region during Frontier Days, which continues through July 31 and is expected to draw more than 140,000 visitors.
“There’s no guarantees, but I’ve done Frontier Days before,” Johnson said. “It’s really busy after concerts. They’re just mainly drunk. They probably should have quit drinking a couple of hours before I picked them up.”
The rideshare drivers rolled into Cheyenne, taking people dressed to the nines in Western duds to the Frontier Days arena, or back to their hotels after a long day of sitting in the sun and drinking under the stars watching musical performers like country music band Turnpike Troubadours or rapper Jelly Roll.
Other pickups were made at after-hours parties around town at popular spots like the Outlaw Saloon or Comfort Inn & Suites in South Cheyenne where they found inebriated festivalgoers.
The rideshare drivers cashed in.
Blocked in Colorado
Uber driver John Gatewood picked up a family whose rental car broke down near the Wyoming Department of Transportation headquarters along Interstate 25, just a short hop from the Cheyenne Frontier Days arena where a statue of the enduring rodeo rider and singer Chris LeDoux on a bucking stallion keeps watch over the rodeo grounds.
“They were coming here from Montana for two different concerts at Frontier Days and were stuck,” Gatewood said.
Rental cars were sold out in Cheyenne so Gatewood drove the family to Fort Collins, Colorado, to find a replacement, but there were none available.
The next stop was back to the Centennial, Wyoming, area where the family wanted to return to their hotel.
Gatewood punched a few buttons on his Uber app to book the drive back to the mountainous region west of Laramie.
But the reservation failed. He was blocked from bidding on the ride.
“It wouldn’t let me add them, so they had to get another Uber driver from Colorado,” said Gatewood, who was frustrated as he spoke with Cowboy State Daily over the phone as he attempted to navigate out of Fort Collins alone in heavy traffic and head back to Cheyenne on Friday afternoon.
He felt bad for the family.
“You know, they already broke down, so all these extra costs hurt,” he said.
Gatewood was blocked by Uber because the company doesn’t permit Wyoming-registered drivers to work in Colorado.
Annual Pilgrimage
The starry-eyed Gatewood lives in Glenrock and had driven down for the weekend to make what he hoped would be hundreds of dollars or maybe even thousands.
Colorado seemed like easy money for Gatewood.
But to participate in a ridesharing service in Colorado from Wyoming, drivers like Gatewood must have their vehicle registered in Colorado, have a 19-point vehicle inspection in Colorado and have a Colorado driver’s license and proof of insurance, according to Uber.
Gatewood had been unaware of the rule being in his first year driving for Uber after working in the oil field services industry for the past 24 years.
Wyoming was one of the last states in the nation to jump onto the bandwagon to legalize ridesharing for Uber and Lyft back in 2017.
Ridesharing companies shunned small town America because they didn’t generate the kind of profits that big urban areas like Denver, Los Angeles or San Francisco did.
But when ridesharing finally arrived, Wyomingites were thrilled. Former Wyoming Gov. Matthew Mead signed the bill, and it was off to the races with ridesharing.
But these taxi-like drivers quickly realized early on what Gatewood finally discovered this past weekend.
“I’m allowed to pick up in Cheyenne or Wyoming, wherever, and bring them into Colorado, but as soon as I drop them off and end the ride, the app locks me out from doing Uber rides,” he explained.
Uber offers what are called “Greenlight Hubs” where drivers can get their vehicles inspected and activate their account in Colorado. But the car still requires tags and they must obtain a Colorado driver’s license and insurance sanctioned by the state.
Stiffing Wyomingites
It’s a tough standard for rideshare drivers who hail from Wyoming.
“Wyoming doesn’t have any restrictions for any of this,” Gatewood said. “We live in Wyoming, so we have our thing, and Colorado has its. I’m able to stay busy in Wyoming with other apps, like Lyft.”
Noam Mantaka, who operates a food truck that occasionally is parked in front of the Black Tooth Brewing Company in Cheyenne, stopped taking riders into Colorado shortly after the 2017 Wyoming legislation was signed.
This is because shortly after Mead signed the legislation, Mantaka drove a passenger over a 100-miles to Denver International Airport but couldn’t find a rider to take back. He had also been blocked by the app.
“I got very aggravated. It was crazy,” Mantaka said.
Wyoming rideshare drivers interviewed by Cowboy State Daily complained that it’s not worth it for them to drive someone to Colorado but return without passengers. Meanwhile, Colorado rideshare drivers can make money driving passengers both ways.
“Colorado drivers come up here in packs to Frontier Days. They get better rides. That’s why I it gave up during this week,” said Mantaka, who began focusing on his food truck business at about the same time.
He last worked Frontier Days over four years ago.
Uber driver David Orr has been working Frontier Days since it was first allowed back in 2017.
“I had 27 rides yesterday,” Orr said of Uber pickups on Sunday. “I was home by 10 p.m. at night. I didn’t stay up until 2 a.m. this year, like I sometimes do,” said the 76-year-old Orr, a former educator in Cheyenne.
“I probably make more during Frontier Days than I do in six or seven weeks during the rest of the year,” he said.
Getting Around The Law
Other drivers said they’ve heard of Wyomingites getting around the app block by renting a car in Colorado and using it to drive around Cheyenne for Frontier Days. Some even go as far as borrowing a friend’s car that is registered south of the border.
In previous years, Uber driver Tony Enlow, said that he’s earned $700 to $800 on a few days of work. As of Sunday, he said he had collected half of that.
One of the reasons Enlow won't drive for the rideshare service full-time is because of the Colorado restrictions.
“The only way I know how to get around the restriction, and I have never tried it, is to rent a car that’s registered in Colorado for a week,” he said. “But you also have to tell Uber you have a different car for the week.”
Contact Pat Maio at pat@cowboystatedaily.com
Pat Maio can be reached at pat@cowboystatedaily.com.
