Smashed ankle? Affirmative.
Punctured lung? That too.
Grand Rapids and Justin McBride go together like a windshield and a bug.
The Michigan town – traditionally one of the last regular-season stops of the PBR’s Built Ford Tough Series – has twice put the kibosh on the Oklahoma bull rider’s championship dreams.
McBride (Elk City, Okla.) rides into Van Andel Arena this weekend having dominated the 2007 season. His closest competitor, 2006 Daisy Rookie of the Year J.B. Mauney (Mooresville, N.C.) is more than 1,700 points behind him. Guilherme Marchi (Leme, Sao Paulo, Brazil), last year’s regular-season points leader, comes in at adistant third, 3,024 points behind.
But McBride has a history in Grand Rapids, and it isn’t pretty.
In 2003, the Grand Rapids event was pivotal to the season; it was the second-to-last event just before the PBR World Finals. McBride, battling for the No. 1 spot with Chris Shivers (Jonesville, La.), started the event strong, easily covering his bulls in the preliminary rounds. In the short go, though, McBride faced Roy Carter Bucking Bull’s Mission Pack, and left the arena with broken ribs, a punctured lung and no score.
The next year, just behind Adriano Moraes (Sao Paulo, Brazil), McBride headed to Grand Rapids again, but left town with a broken ankle courtesy of D&H Cattle Company’s bull Lefty. For the second year in a row, McBride had to compete at the PBR World Finals while healing from serious injuries, this time with 2 rods and 9 pins inserted into his fractured ankle.
Grand Rapids didn’t pose a problem for McBride in 2005 – he went on to win the PBR World Championship. In 2006, he got out unscathed. But the specter of injury still looms.
“It may seem like I’m jinxed in Grand Rapids,” McBride said, “but I don’t care. I’m riding right now with a dislocated shoulder that I received in [Chihuahua] Mexico, so hopefully that’s my only injury for this season. I just get on whatever bull they run under me; I take them one at a time. I don’t care what city I’m in.”
Fans can witness Justin McBride tempting fate and competing with the other top 44 bull riders in the world at the Johnsonville Brats Invitational this weekend, September 21 and 22 at the Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids. Tickets for the event are available via Ticketmaster, or call 616 456 3333 to charge by phone.
VERSUS will also air the event on Saturday at 9:30 p.m. ET and Sunday at 8:00 p.m. ET.
For more information about the Johnsonville Brats Invitational, Justin McBride or the PBR, please visit www.pbrnow.com or contact Kristin Van Scoyk at 719 352 9592.
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