PUEBLO, Colo. – It’s been a mixed bag of a PBR Camping World Team Series season for Braidy Randolph.
The Texas Rattler is 7-for-19 (36%) this season, which is too low for his liking, though it is up from his riding percentage from last season, 23% (5-for-21).
And of the four total 90-point rides the Rattlers have this season – the third-most in the league – Randolph has two.
Randolph is tied for third place on the 90-point ride leaderboard with the Austin Gamblers’ Dalton Kasel and the Carolina Cowboys’ Sage Kimzey. They trail only three-time World Champion Jose Vitor Leme of the Gamblers and rookie sensation Cassio Dias of the Kansas City Outlaws, who have five apiece.
“It’s pretty cool,” Randolph said. “This is my first year getting to go 90 multiple times.”
His first was a 90.25-point trip on UTZ BesTex Smokestack at Stampede Days in Nashville, Tennessee, in August. He followed that up with 90 points even on Tulsa Time at Freedom Fest in Oklahoma City in early September.
“I’d seen him around. He’s been around for a couple years,” Randolph said of Tulsa Time. “Every time they’ve rode him, they’ve been 88-90 on him or better. I knew he’d either go left or right, so I needed to just bear down and go to the front, and as long as I kept fighting with him, I knew I’d get him rode.”
Randolph made his PBR debut for the Rattlers in 2022. His two 90s this season were the first of his career, and while he’s happy with that development, he’d rather his riding percentage be up as well.
“It’s just getting my bulls rode and trying to ride every single one I get on,” Randolph said. “I’d like to have more rode, but I’ll take it while I can. It’s better compared to last year because I got on 21 bulls last year throughout the Teams season, and I rode five of them. I rode five, and it’s already been better than last year. So every year’s been getting better. The team’s getting better. The guys, we’re all getting better together, and I think it’ll be good for all of us.”
Randolph and the Rattlers head home this weekend to close out the regular season with Rattler Days in Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas. With just three games remaining on each team’s schedule, the Rattlers sit at No. 3 in the standings with a 13-12 record – the same as the No. 4 Oklahoma Freedom, with the tie broken by season aggregate.
The Freedom have 36 qualified rides this season for 3,094 points, while the Rattlers have 47 rides and 4,072 points. The only team with more qualified rides than the Rattlers is the No. 2 Kansas City Outlaws with 52 (4,506.5 points).
Yet the Rattlers are five games behind the No. 1 Gamblers, who have the same number of qualified rides (4,105 points) and have already clinched a first-round bye at the 2023 PBR Teams Championship in Las Vegas on Oct. 20-22 as one of the top two teams in the regular season.
While they did win Thunder Days in Ridgedale, Missouri, game wins just haven’t come as easily for Texas, who is still mathematically alive for the second first-round bye.
“We’ve rode a lot of bulls, but we ain’t won a lot of games, and the name of the game is to win games here,” Randolph said. “Yeah, you want to ride every bull, but we need to win some games. But it’s going good. As long as we keep doing what we’re supposed to do, I think it’ll work out.”
While it has been frustrating at times, Randolph says riding so many bulls is a win in itself, and the team hasn’t let their disappointment overtake them.
“You can’t get mad about it because if you do, it’s just not going to make it better for anyone because if you get mad about it, nobody rides,” he said. “And if all of us stay mad at ourselves, none of us will do good. We’re riding our bulls, we’re all healthy, we’ll just take it one bull, one ride at a time.”
Last season, the Rattlers were the first team in PBR Teams history to go a perfect 5-for-5 in a game. Randolph says that after every win, they’re still chasing the high of that one.
“It’s not bad. It could be better,” Randolph said of the post-win vibe in the locker room. “Nobody’s mad, nobody’s sad, but that time when we rode five, it definitely ain’t been that feeling. And I think all of us could do that every game. It’s just a matter of us making sure we do it and choosing to.”
The Rattlers kick off their homestand on Friday against the Freedom (8:45 p.m. ET on RidePass on Pluto TV). They’ll then take on the Gamblers on Saturday and the No. 7 Nashville Stampede (9-16) on Sunday.
Randolph says the first win of the weekend is critical, and that’s what he and the Rattlers will be looking to do in Dickies Arena.
“It’s a big deal,” Randolph said. “Kind of get the weekend rolling, get a little bit of the pressure off, and start winning some games, because that’s what we need to do.”
Photo courtesy of Josh Homer/Bull Stock Media