When the dust finally settled in the Rimrock Auto Arena and Travis Briscoe had a chance to gather his thoughts, he didn’t remember much of his winning ride.

Briscoe, who won the Nile Invitational and moved from fourth to second in the world standings Sunday, rode Paycheck for 93.25 points in the Built Ford Tough Championship Round, but slammed his head in the dirt when his spur got caught in the flank strap.

The 23-year-old stumbled to the fence, but then tore off his helmet, victoriously pumped his chest and celebrated amidst the confetti.

“I don’t really remember much of it,” he said nearly 30 minutes later. “They said it was pretty juicy, but I don’t remember much.”

Briscoe was one of four riders to cover all four bulls on the weekend. He claimed his first Built Ford Tough Series win of 2010 with a combined total of 354.75 points, outscoring Ned Cross (346.25), Renato Nunes (344.25) and Silvano Alves (341.75).

Afterward he admitted that he was “still a little loopy,” but that he would be back next week in Des Moines, Iowa, “as strong as ever.”

With the race for the world title this deep, neither Briscoe nor any of the other top contenders can afford to miss any of the remaining 13 events.

“This year is going to be hard,” said Guilherme Marchi, who rode away with the 2008 title. “Everybody is riding very good.”

So good, in fact, that Austin Meier came to Billings, Mont., as the top rider in the world with only a 108.25-point lead over Nunes. He left in third place overall, and now trails Nunes by 656 points. Nunes, in the top spot, has a slim 242.5-point advantage over Briscoe.

Nunes covered Chicken on a Chain for 91.75 points in the short round, and could only smile at the notion of being the No. 1 rider in the world.

He is the sixth man to officially take the lead this season, a spot no rider has held for more than three weeks. J.B. Mauney has managed to get there on three different occasions.

“Renato is number one right now, and this little guy has a lot of potential to win the title, too,” Marchi said, “but this year is going to be a little harder for him to win the title. The Top 10 guys keep fighting every week.”

Robson Palermo added, “I like the kid and I hope he keeps riding good and doesn’t mess up.”

For Meier, it was a tough weekend in the arena.

He said he doesn’t feel like he’s riding poorly, but that he had “two rough bulls” in the opening rounds, and then his hand popped out of his rope in Round 3.

“It just wasn’t my weekend,” he said. “Things just didn’t happen.

“As tight as the race is, when things don’t happen for you, it can change a lot. I still feel good and I’m still healthy. Everything is bigger this year. The race is probably one of the tightest races they’ve ever had for the PBR, and it’s a big deal.”

Six riders – Nunes, Briscoe, Meier, Mauney, Ryan McConnel and Palermo – will go into next week’s event with a chance to leave as the No. 1 bull rider in the world.

Marchi and the newly returned Valdiron de Oliveira are both within 2,000 points of the lead. They also happen to have the two highest riding percentages.

“All the guys are healthy now and all the guys are hot,” Palermo said. “J.B. started doing good this week. Austin Meier stumbled this week, but he’ll ride good next week for sure, and come back really strong.

“I don’t worry about that. I’m just worried about riding my bulls and keeping it going.”

Added Meier, “Everybody’s riding to win, so it counts every ride you make.”

Mauney made the most of his weekend until coming down hard in the short round. After struggling for the better part of a month, the 23-year-old covered three bulls in Billings and used the first pick in the bull draft for the short round to select Soulja Boy.

He didn’t make the whistle, but he finished the event fifth, and moved from sixth to fourth in the all-in-important and ever-changing world standings.

“I need to ride every bull I get on,” he said. “The past couple years I’ve been second in the world, and that’s my fault. Everybody says, ‘Well, you did what you could,’ but I didn’t. Every year I’ve gone through a slump just like this, and that’s the main reason that’s kept me from winning the world a couple years in a row, and I have to step up to the game and stay consistent all year round.”

“It’s going to come down to the last bull of the last day of the Finals, in the short round,” Briscoe said. “There’s probably going to be five guys that it’s between, so I’m just going to do my job to stay up there and ride bulls.”

When told his effort this weekend resulted in a move up the standings, the New Mexico native said, “It’s always good, but it’s not first. I’m not fighting for the No. 1 spot right now. I’m fighting for it at the end of the year.”

Killer instincts

When asked to recall a season in which so many riders were battling it out for the world title, Michael Gaffney said, “I can’t, not when you’re talking about depth for that many guys. I can’t recall.”

The 1997 World Champion, who was in Billings this weekend as a color commentator for the Versus broadcast, described the 2010 season as being “dynamic,” and said it’s important for the top riders “to take hold of these chances when they get them.”

When asked if any of the current Top 10 riders had the same “killer instinct” as Ty Murray, Justin McBride, Adriano Moraes or Troy Dunn, he said, “You’re talking about guys that when they got their shot they took the shot, and they accomplished it nine out of 10 times.”

The one rider Gaffney thought might be comparable was Mauney, but even then he added, “Does he hate to lose just as much as Justin McBride, Ty Murray? Quite honestly, I think not.”

If it’s not one thing, it’s another

Saturday night, Palermo was thrown into an open chute and had his left ankle stepped on after riding Mac-Nett’s El Presidente for 88.25 points. The next morning his ankle felt fine, but he said the problem is with his knee.

“I don’t know what happened,” said Palermo, who wore a brace in the final two rounds after being reexamined by Dr. Tandy Freeman. He was told he might have twisted his knee in the wreck and sprained some ligaments. “I got up (Sunday) morning and my knee was sore.”

American dreams

Since qualifying for the BFTS, Alves is a perfect 8-for-8, and he followed up his debut win in Nampa, Idaho, with a fourth-place finish in Billings. “He proved to everybody that he’s good,” said fellow Brazilian Marchi.

“These guys come to United States and they have a dream like other bull riders,” he said. Marchi added that Alves is strong and healthy and has successfully ridden every type of bull a rider can draw or draft on the BFTS.

“He has a dream to win the title,” Marchi continued, “and he can do it.”

Three years and 100 pounds

When PBR Livestock Director Cody Lambert took a look at a particular 3-year-old bull three years ago, he told the bull’s owners that he was “just too small” to compete on the BFTS. He was a well-bred calf from Zorro, but he didn’t quite have enough size, so his Lufkin Ranch owners sold him to a contractor in Ohio.

Then, earlier this year, Jeff Robinson hauled a new bull of his named Bandalero to an event in Baltimore. He was good enough in Baltimore that Lambert had Robinson bring him back the following week in New York, where he performed well again.

That’s when Lambert got an interesting phone call.

“Chuck Griffith [of Lufkin Ranch] told me that was one of the bulls I said was too small, and that’s why they sold him,” Lambert recalled. “Had they known that a couple of years later I would be using him on the Built Ford Tough Series, they probably wouldn’t have sold him.”

Just how small is Bandalero?

His weight is estimated at between 975 and 1,000 pounds. On Sunday morning, when Lambert walked past the back pens, he thought Bandalero was one of the miniature bulls used Friday and Saturday night for the youth bull riding competition.

“Then I looked again and I could see Pinball Wizard standing there,” said Lambert, laughing, “and I looked closer and that was Bandalero.”

A world of hurt

Last week, Canadian rider Aaron Roy was matched up with Chicken Fried at the World Cup and “was riding him pretty easily” when, as he explained, “he kind of got my inside foot and pulled me down and hit me with his horn right in the cheek.”

His face still swollen, Roy sported a distinct black eye this weekend, and his cheekbone is fractured. “It’s still pretty sore to eat and open my mouth,” said Roy, who rode two of four bulls in Billings.

“I contemplated missing this one and going next week,” he continued, “but before the World Cup I skipped out on two weeks and I got sick of sitting at home doing nothing, so I had to come down here and try and make some money.”

A sense of belonging

Until this weekend, David Kennedy had ridden just four of 26 bulls in five previous BFTS events. In Billings, though, the Australian went 3-for-4 and finished sixth in the average.

What changed? The 25-year-old spent a few days with Troy Dunn and his Aussie teammates at the World Cup in Las Vegas.

“Everyone just got behind me, and they all know I can do it, so they told me just to relax and let it hang,” said Kennedy, who singled out Dunn as a motivator. “He makes you believe in yourself. He knows what to say at the right time and how to get you to perform at your best.”

“I really didn’t think I belonged here,” Kennedy admitted, “and that week just turned it around for me.”

By invitation only

Three of the five western region invitees from the Touring Pro Division – Matt Werries, Markus Mariluch and Chon Miranda – each earned one qualified ride in three outs this weekend.

All three rides were made in Round 2. Fellow regional contestants Chris Newsom and Dusty Ephrom both went 0-for-3.

All in the family

Six bulls from the Yellow Jacket family – Silver Spur, Bull Named Sue, Two Face Monkey, Nevada’s #633, Same # Different Bull and Nevada’s #616 – made their BFTS debuts in Round 2 of the Nile Invitational.

Afterward, Lambert said two of them looked like prospects, but that none of them blew him away like Yellow Jacket or Little Yellow Jacket did when he saw them for the first time. It was years ago, in Billings, that both of those legendary bulls made their first appearances on the PBR’s elite series.

“You never know until you bring them to the bright lights like this how they’re going to react, because there are so many distractions,” said Lambert, who added that his advice for owner Joe Berger is to “take them home, try to season them throughout the summer at amateur events and at some Touring Pros and things like that, and maybe in the Fall I’ll take another look at the better end of them.”

Hometown hero

He isn’t actually from Billings, but this weekend, Montana’s Beau Hill said, “It’s pretty much a hometown bull riding. I don’t feel like I’m really on the road here.”

Hill and his wife Keri spent the week in town together, so he could handle the pre-event publicity for the PBR. By week’s end, the couple was joined by their two children – Lakia and Jace – and what seemed like an entire cheering section of friends and family.

“I like having them around,” Hill said. “It helps me feel relaxed, and I just have to go out there and do my job. It actually pumps me up quite a bit.”

After making the whistle in Round 1, Hill was roughed up in Round 2 and unable to compete on Sunday afternoon. But the 31-year-old came out to the Rimrock Auto Center on Sunday and mingled with locals during the performance.

Home sweet home

After driving more than four hours from to Billings – only 11 miles of which was on a four-lane road – Flint Rasmussen admitted that he’s considered living closer to a major airport. “But there’s a reason there’s a major airport,” he said. “There’s more people.”

Rasmussen lives in Choteau, which is an hour’s drive from Great Falls. The Montana native loves the fact that his two daughters attend school with just 20 other kids. “It’s a pretty good life,” he said.

The ‘reality’ of traveling

On his way to his first BFTS event in January, rookie rider J.C. Navarro “actually ran into a woman, in the airport, who works for ‘Survivor,’ and she got to talking about it.”

Turns out she’s a casting producer for both “Survivor” and “The Amazing Race.”

She explained to him that a lot of the contestants cast on the shows are just “interesting people” the producers have met. She and Navarro have exchanged emails, and she recently sent him a series of questions to answer. While he said he’s personally more interested in “The Amazing Race,” he’s been told that because of Cord and Jet McCoy’s involvement in that show, the interest in Navarro is for “Survivor.”

“I haven’t told anybody about this really,” he said, “so it’s odd that we’re talking about it right now. There are no guaranteed deals. … That’s why I try to live in the moment, the now, and capitalize on the opportunity.”

An ‘amazing’ finish

For the fourth time this season, Cord and Jet won another leg of “The Amazing Race.” This time they were in China and beat out three other teams in the last non-elimination week. Next week, one more team will be eliminated from the show.

The series finale is scheduled for Sunday, May 9 on CBS.

Cord and his fiancé Sara Best will be flying to New York the day before the final show of the series with Jet, his wife Ashlee and their sister Nikki, along with her husband Roger Callison. Cord believes all 11 teams will be on hand at the studio.

The Oklahoma native, who recently won a Touring Pro event in Stephenville, Texas, said he’s beginning to enter more bull riding events, but that after a whirlwind fall and winter he needed a little time to catch up with work on the ranch and to be with his future wife.

Cord and Sara met at a BFTS event, were engaged during the 2010 PBR World Finals, and have set a wedding date for Nov. 13, 2010.

— by Keith Ryan Cartwright