ST. LOUIS (February 28, 2010) - On any given weekend, the PBR arena is covered with signage.
But a few weeks ago, one sign in particular caught the attention of McKennon Wimberly.
It read: “Winning is an Attitude. Expect to Win.”
“That’s kind of stuck with me,” he said Saturday night after winning his first-ever round at a Built Ford Tough Series event. “I’ve just been expecting to win everywhere I go, and had a good positive attitude about it.
“I’ve always been one who took little short sayings and stuff and really held onto them, said them to myself and thought about them a lot, and used them every day to help make me better.”
Saturday night at the Scottrade Center, the 21-year-old from Cool, Texas, was better than 39 other riders competing in the Enterprise Rent-A-Car Invitational.
Wimberly, who had the seventh pick in the bull draft for Round 2, scored 88 points on Nasty Town for the top score out of 17 qualified rides.
Jody Newberry was second. His 87.5-point score combined with Friday’s 86.75 gives him the lead in the average by three quarters of a point over Wimberly. The Top 5 spots were rounded out with a three-way split between Shane Proctor, Ned Cross and Ryan McConnel, who each had 87.25 points.
Newberry’s been in this position before, heading into the final day of an event.
The 29-year-old from Ada, Okla., is competing in his fourth BFTS event after being absent from the tour for the past three years. He is likely to be in the short round for the third time.
“It was a game plan to start with,” Newberry said, “and it’s pretty good when a plan comes together.”
This weekend he covered Hypnotized in the opening round, and then used the third pick in the Round 2 bull draft to select Flashpoint.
His best finish this year was his first event in Tampa, Fla., where he finished seventh overall. He has a career riding average of 49.35 percent, and since coming back he’s covered seven of 11 bulls for 63.64 percent.
“I bucked off some bulls that I shouldn’t have, and that’s what cost me from winning Tampa, absolutely, and placing pretty deep in Oklahoma City,” he said after last night’s round, “so I think the key is to settle down and ride each one of them just like he was the first one.
“It’s no different riding the short round bull as it is riding a long round bull, but sometimes you allow yourself to get a little more hyped up about it or worked up about it. I think that’s the key, just put my hand in my rope and do what I do—and stay calm.”
A half-dozen other riders – L.J. Jenkins, Valdiron de Oliveira, Sean Willingham, Mike Lee, Bryan Richardson and Josh Koschel – have also covered both bulls.
Round 1 winner Kody Lostroh didn’t make it to the 8-second whistle on his pick Smack Down. While the clock in the arena read 7.7 seconds, a review indicated that the actual time was 7.53 seconds.
Oliveira, Koschel, Proctor and Wimberly are all in position to shake up the Top 10 in the world standings, especially considering the Top 2 in the world – J.B. Mauney and Travis Briscoe – are each 0-for-2 this weekend in St. Louis.
“I know some of the bulls I rode here lately would have bucked me off earlier,” admitted Wimberly, who’s been working out and training daily, “but they’re good ones to have. It’s been working out, and I think confidence is a factor.”
Wimberly came into this weekend 10th in the world standings, and is now poised to crack the Top 5.
A career 42.41 percent rider, Wimberly has covered 16 of 30 this season for 53.33 percent. A week after finding himself in the semifinal round of the Iron Cowboy, he’s focused on winning a BFTS event for the first time ever.
“A bull rider is what I am,” Wimberly said. “When I’m at home I do cowboy work and stuff, but everything I do is to make me a better bull rider. This is my job, my life, my career, so every time I’m at home I’m working on being a better bull rider all week instead of messing around and playing just because I have the time off.”
The final two rounds of this week’s three-day event concludes this afternoon at 2 p.m. CT and can be seen tonight on Versus beginning at 8 p.m. ET.
NEWS and NOTES
Torch passed: With Luke Snyder’s improbable streak of 275 consecutive BFTS events having come to an end, Versus stat keeper Chris Taylor-Shaut poured through his records to figure out who had the longest current streak. That rider is Sean Willingham, who has now been to 167 events in a row.
Willingham hasn’t been absent from work since missing the last BFTS event of the 2004 season with a wrist injury. He returned a week later and competed in the PBR World Finals.
Event Center: Follow all the action from this week’s BFTS event in St. Louis by logging on to www.pbr.com and entering the “Event Center,” which is accessible from the tab located at the top of the main Web page. The Event Center provides live scoring, live blogging and event-related Podcasts and interviews.
