PUEBLO, Colo. (July 2, 2010) - “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” and so goes the 2010 season for Ryan McConnel.
Much like the classic novel, "A Tale of Two Cities," McConnel’s attempt to contend for this year’s world title has been a tale of 20 cities.
With a third of the season still to play out, McConnel’s first 10 Built Ford Tough Series events were a stark contrast to the 10 events leading into the summer break.
After a seventh-place finish in Atlanta, followed by a third-place finish in Baltimore – that included an impressive 91.5-point effort on Big Tex (WATCH HERE) – the 23-year-old labored through a stretch of five-consecutive events in which he failed to qualify for the short round. In fact, during that time, he covered just three of 12 bulls.
By comparison, he had a four-event run from Fresno, Calif., through Nampa, Idaho, in which he rode 11 of 14, and in three of those weekends, he covered at least three bulls.
With statistics like that, it’s an understatement to call him streaky.
But if he plans to challenge the likes of Renato Nunes, Austin Meier, Travis Briscoe, Guilherme Marchi and Robson Palermo for the 2010 title, he most definitely needs to maintain the momentum he garnered going into the break.
Riding percentage: 50.8 (2010), 49.2 (career); Influential ride from 2010: Baltimore, Round 3, Big Tex, 91.5 points; Most telling statistic of 2010: Qualified for just four short rounds in first 10 events – compared to twice that number in the past 10 events.
In the fifth of a 10-part series, a panel of experts – Cody Lambert, Ty Murray, Justin McBride and Justin McKee – weigh in on the current Top 10 riders in the world, and what it will take for any one of them to win the 2010 PBR World Championship.
What the experts are saying:
Justin McKee: “He’s made the impression that he might be a year away. There are different breaking places in the standings. There’s the Top 15, the Top 10 and there’s the Top 3 and, I think, he has to go through some Guilherme Marchi, J.B. Mauney years. You’ve got to be close before you know how to finish the big one. I think he’s a Top 3 guy this year, and he’s going to need that experience to maybe win it next year or the year after.”
Cody Lambert: “He’s very capable. He’s just a young guy that gets distracted. To me, he looks like a young guy that can really ride, but suffers – a little bit – from an identity crises. He might lose focus at seconds because he’s worried about what kind of dance he’s going to do with (Flint) after he gets off, or something like that. And then when you talk to him, he’s just a humble, really nice kid. It’s hard for a kid who wants to be real quiet, but wants to make sure everybody notices him. I don’t get it, and I can’t figure it out… He can do some things right. He can really ride, but he’s easily distracted because with a different style of bull, he’ll try to make a special game plan that will wreck the problem. The game plan is the same on all of them – you stay in the middle.”
Justin McBride: “He’s got to learn to keep his feet down, and that was a problem I had early on in my career – being able to keep my feet down. Sometimes, because of the way I rode, I didn’t have any weight on my feet. There are just a couple of little things you have to do and it puts weight on your feet all the time. He needs to figure that out and he’s got to make a few little adjustments. And if he does that, he’s going to be tough to beat for a long time.”
Ty Murray: “I’m not as big of a McConnel fan as everybody else is.”
Chance of winning title in 2010:
McKee: “He won’t. I think for him to win it in the future, he has to finish in the Top 3 this year to prove to himself and know that he’s proven to everybody that he is a World-Champion-caliber guy… Here’s the deal, he’s proven to everybody that he’s worthy, but he’s not convinced he’s won everybody’s favor yet. You have to prove yourself to the guys you’re competing against, and I’m not sure that he has.”
McBride: “When you were talking about the beginning of the season, when it didn’t look like he could ride anything, it was because his feet were hitting him right dead in the (butt) on mediocre bulls. When he gets his riding arm straight, he has no weight what-so-ever, and his feet cannot stay down. On a bull like Big Tex, you can get away with that, but on a lot of just common type of bulls, you can’t get away with it. You have to have your feet down, and until he can make those adjustments to get by not only a bull like Big Tex, who does all the work for you, but get by those common-type bulls too. That’s why Guilherme (Marchi) is so good – because he can ride pretty much all the long-round bulls all the time, and he can ride a good majority of the short-round bulls. He’s going to get bucked off his share, but he doesn’t let the mediocre ones get away from him.”
NEWS and NOTES
Top wrecks of 2010: Watch the top wrecks of 2010, then vote for the worst here.
