Oil prices and the Calgary Stampede rodeo

Top barrel and--

The thundering hooves, breakneck speeds, and roaring crowd make the chuckwagon races the signature event at the Calgary Stampede. We're going about 40 mile an hour.

His name is Layne MacGillivray.

For more than two decades, Layne MacGillivray has steered thoroughbreds around this dirt track. It seems like one hell of an adrenaline rush. It is. A lot of things go on behind the scenes for that minute and 15 seconds of adrenaline.

Chuckwagons initially developed as a rugged mobile field kitchen for cattle drives in the 19th century. Today, they speed around a track known as the half-mile of hell. To the winner, $50,000 and bragging rights-- so too for the chuck's sponsors, the wagon's logos a barometer of the global economy. This is about the price of oil. And how did oil and gas get involved with the chuckwagon races? It requires a lot of money to keep all these horses, to train all of these horses. And companies will bid on these, based on the top drivers. The higher the price of oil is, the higher the chuckwagon canvas auction goes.

The province of Alberta has the fourth-largest proven oil reserve in the world, its fortunes tightly tied to energy prices. Every year, it's crazy, but it's either crazy good or crazy bad.

This year was crazy good for Alberta. The US-Iran war sent the price of oil and gas soaring, and with it, oil company profits, including cash for advertising on chuckwagons. I got up there, and it was unbelievable. We went for $475,000.

Nearly 340,000 US dollars, roughly twice the yearly average. There was a lot of optimism this year at the tarp auction.

Scott Stevenson at Summit Fleet provides vehicles for oil and gas companies. We kind of got locked in on Layne MacGillivray, and we got in a bit of a bidding war.

Layne's life, like many here, follows oil's boom-and-bust cycle. This year, the dollars are flowing. And as oil money fuels the races and greases the wheels of the economy, that will help the Calgary Stampede remain, as it says, the greatest outdoor show on Earth. Ian Lee, CBS News, Calgary, Alberta.