GREENVILLE, S.C. (September 12, 2010) - “Shake and bake is back,” proclaimed an elated J.B. Mauney.
The North Carolina native didn’t win the Greenville Invitational, but he did ride Voodoo Child for 93.5 points, while his good friend Sean Willingham went 3-for-3 for a share of the event win with Paulo Lima.
It was Willingham’s first Built Ford Tough Series win in more than two years. He last won in Orlando, Fla., back in early 2008.
“That’s my buddy J.B. Mauney,” said Willingham, who couldn’t help but laugh at Mauney’s reference to the 2006 comedy “Talladega nights: The ballad of Ricky Bobby.” “We like to do a little shakin’ and bakin’ and we finally got it back rolling.
“That’s been our whole thing since that movie came out. We used to be one and two all the time and that kind of slipped away, so we finally got that back the last few weeks. Look out for shake and bake, we’re coming.”
Willingham has been to all 26 events in 2010, but he’s made only 10 short rounds, and finished in the Top 5 just five times. And the Georgia native is well aware that four times this year he’s gone a month without competing in the short round.
After competing in the first five short rounds of the season, his only other back-to-back appearance was in Pueblo, Colo., and again in Tulsa, Okla., and even then, the two events were separated by a two-month summer break.
His best finish until Saturday night was fourth place in St. Louis.
“I don’t know,” he said. “It was like I was a rookie again when I came to these Built Ford Tough deals, because at the [Touring Pro events] all summer long, I’ve been winning first and second pretty much everywhere I went. Then I’d come here and it’s like I couldn’t get everything put together.
“Finally it started clicking again last week at a [Touring Pro] and I won second, and you know, I’m glad I finally brought it to the big show where it actually counts.”
His weekend started with an 88-point ride on Marmaduke to split second and third in the early average with Travis Sellers.
He came back in Round 2 with 85.5 points to secure the first pick in the bull draft for the Built Ford Tough Championship Round. Willingham, who admitted he sometimes struggles with making a wise decision with 15 bulls to choose from, went with Buffalo Hump.
Willingham rode him for 89.25 points. The bull has now been covered in 10 of 19 outs the past two years.
“Anytime you’re coming back first, it’s kind of a hard decision,” said Willingham, who went with a bull he thought would fit his style. “It’s always been tough on me to pick the ones I can win on. Today it worked out good.”
The 29-year-old raised his season average to 43.06 percent, which is down from his career average of 45.42 percent, but the win moved him into 12th place in the world standings. He’s now only a little more than 1,000 points out of the Top 10 with four regular-season BFTS events left on the schedule.
His best finish came three seasons ago when he finished eighth in the world standings in 2007. He’s been in the Top 20 for the past five years and is looking for his second Top 10 finish in his eight-year career on the BFTS.
Now that he’s relaxed and not trying to do too much, Willingham plans to continue letting the “bulls do their job and just ride what they do.”
Or perhaps the key to success could be he and Mauney, who finished the event in fifth and is now 1,440 points off the lead in the world standings, sharing in each other’s success.
“As long as we’re shakin’ and bakin’ the same day,” Willingham joked, “we don’t want to leave it to one guy to all the shakin’ and bakin’, so we’re good to go.”
Lima validates Moraes
Some doubted Adriano Moraes’ decision to include Paulo Lima on the Brazilian roster for the World Cup earlier this year.
But after Lima split first and second with Sean Willingham for his first BFTS event win at the Greenville Invitational, the decision seemed justified.
“I’m very proud,” said Moraes, “because I knew this kid could ride, and that’s why I put him on my team in the World Cup.
“Everybody was like, ‘Adriano, I think you made a mistake.’ I was like, ‘No, I’m experienced enough. I know who can ride or who cannot.’”
Lima, who is 31st in the world standings and 17th in the qualifier standings, has now ridden in 10 events, and after two second-place finishes has earned a share of his first win after avenging an earlier buckoff.
He chose Chicken on a Chain with the fourth pick in the bull draft Saturday night. Chicken is the same bull that put him on the dirt in 6.7 seconds and kept him from winning his first event back in San Antonio.
“I’m very proud that he has a champion’s attitude,” said Moraes, who admired the fact that Lima did not shy away from the rematch. “He was like, ‘No, I need to pay that bull back.’”
Lima covered Chicken on a Chain for 91.25 points to take the lead away from Robson Palermo, who wound up finishing fourth in the average.
“I knew he would adapt,” said Moraes of Lima’s adjustment to the United States. “It took a while for him to get used to these bulls, but I knew he was good enough.”
According to Moraes, the bulls in North America are a bit smaller but a lot faster than those in Brazil.One of the keys to Lima’s adjustment has been growing accustomed to setting his rope down a little lower than he had on the heavier bulls he had been riding. In Brazil, Moraes said, the riders rely more on balance, whereas in the U.S., Lima needs to get used to lifting on his rope to hold himself in position on faster bulls.
Lima made the whistle in Round 1 on Big Easy, then got on Spartacus in Round 2.
“Just encouraging him to put his rope down a little bit … that’s what he did now,” Moraes said. “It showed results.”
