PUEBLO, Colo. – Week after week, it becomes increasingly apparent that Cassio Dias is on a crash course with history in 2024.

The No. 1 rider in the Unleash The Beast World Championship standings is leading his closest competitor, No. 2 John Crimber, by 580.5 points with just four regular-season events remaining before the PBR World Finals, beginning on May 9 in Fort Worth, Texas.

This past weekend at the First PREMIER Bank PBR Sioux Falls, presented by Cooper Tires, in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Dias earned his sixth event win of the season – by far leading the league and closing in on the record for most wins in a season (eight, held by Justin McBride and Jose Vitor Leme).

Making Dias’s feats even more remarkable is that he’s still a rookie. While he chases the World Championship, he also has designs on Rookie of the Year honors.

All told, Dias’s season is shaping up to be one of the best of all time.

But where does it stack up among other Rookie of the Year seasons?

After all, Leme was Rookie of the Year, as were Kaique Pacheco, Jess Lockwood, J.B. Mauney, Silvano Alves, J.W. Hart and Kody Lostroh, to name a few. Those are some big names with quite a few gold buckles between them.

Which rookies have had the most event wins in a season?

1. Cassio Dias, 2024 – six event wins

It’s pretty clear that Dias is having the best rookie season the PBR has ever seen. He’s competed in 19 events in 2024 – tied for the second-most in the league behind Kansas City Outlaws teammate Koltin Hevalow (20) – and won six of them. In fact, he’s had more events he’s won than events he’s failed to place. He’s also tied for the most championship-round wins in a single season with Robson Palermo and will look to break that record this weekend at the Wrangler PBR Billings, presented by Cooper Tires, in Billings, Montana. Dias takes on Gucci in Round 1 (April 12 at 9:30 p.m. ET on RidePass on Pluto TV).

T2. Kaique Pacheco, 2015 – three event wins

The Ice Man has made a pretty cool career for himself, winning the 2018 World Championship and finishing No. 2 an astounding four times in a decade of work. But it all began with his Rookie of the Year campaign in 2015, when he won the third event of his premier series career and never looked back. With a 47% riding average and one 90-point ride, it was just a taste of things to come for Pacheco, as it was his first No. 2 finish.

T2. Joao Ricardo Vieira, 2013 – three event wins

One of the best riders in PBR history to not have a gold buckle (yet…), Vieira burst onto the scene as a 29-year-old rookie in 2013. Unsurprisingly, he strung together three event wins that season – the first two back-to-back and the third paired with a 15/15 Bucking Battle win – to close out the rookie race. A perennial world title contender more than a decade later at almost 40 years old, Vieira has joined the 400-ride club and led the Texas Rattlers to the 2023 PBR Camping World Team Series Championship.

T4. Caden Bunch, 2024 – two event wins

Yep, you read that right. Caden Bunch is tied for the fourth-most winningest rookie season in PBR history, and he’s currently ranked third in the 2024 Rookie of the Year race – John Crimber, who’s ranked ahead of him, has one event win this season but has ridden more consistently. When we say this year’s rookie race is unprecedented, we mean it! Bunch has had an impressive year, winning the very first event of the season, and is ranked No. 9 in the UTB World Championship standings.

T4. Rafael Jose de Brito, 2023 – two event wins

Should Cassio Dias win the world title and Rookie of the Year next month, he’ll be just the second man ever to achieve that feat. This man, Rafael Jose de Brito, was the first, doing so just last year. He won his first event in February and then waited until the biggest moment of all to win his second – the 2023 PBR World Finals. Brito is the first rider ever to win the world title, Rookie of the Year, and the World Finals event title in one shot.

T4. Daniel Keeping, 2023 – two event wins

Behind Brito in last year’s Rookie of the Year race was Daniel Keeping, who burst onto the scene as the hero for the 2023 Texas Rattlers before making his premier series debut. Keeping won the third UTB event of his career in December and followed that up with his second win in January, putting together a strong enough start that he finished the year ranked No. 14.

(An honorable mention has to go to Leme, who competed in two events in his rookie season in 2017 – the Pendleton Whisky Velocity Tour Finals and the World Finals – and won the World Finals, launching himself to No. 7 in the world and winning Rookie of the Year. It’s only one event win, but the win-loss ratio is unmatched.)

Photo courtesy of Andy Watson/Bull Stock Media