ONTARIO, Calif. (August 29, 2010) - Two days ago, Austin Meier told his dad he felt like he was 13 years old again.
After struggling for the first few events following the summer break, Meier was finally “dominating everything” the way he had when he first starting riding bulls as a teenager, and couldn’t “wait for the next day to come.”
Sunday afternoon proved to be worth the wait for the 23-year-old from Oklahoma.
Meier was the only rider to cover all three bulls in Ontario, Calif., and won his fifth Built Ford Tough Series event of 2010. The win puts him within 218 points of Renato Nunes.
“The right things happened,” he said, “because generally with an 81 in the long round and the great riders that were here and the great matchups that were here tonight, you’re not going to win, but when you do your job and you get all your bulls rode anything can happen.”
Saturday night, Meier rode Wall Street for 86.5 points and then started off the final day with an 81.75 point effort Bando’s Wild and Reckless – 8 seconds of try, heart and determination – to give him the eighth pick in the bull draft for the Built Ford Tough Championship Round.
Meier took Braveheart – a bull he said he had seen others get on. He looked forward to his own opportunity.
Once he made it past the first hard turn, Meier gutted through a tough few seconds in front of a crowd that included local Southern California resident Tom Cruise. Meier watched as seven more of the top riders in the world failed to make the whistle.
“When you get all your bulls rode, if you don’t win, there’s nothing to look back on,” he said. “You did everything you could.”
Meier won with a three-bull total of 257 points, and was followed by two-time World Champion Chris Shivers (174.75), J.B. Mauney (174), McKennon Wimberly (172.5) and Ben Jones (171.25).
Mauney’s third-place finish moves him to within 1,584.25 points of the lead with five BFTS events before the start of the PBR World Finals in Las Vegas.
