Battle with the bulls kicking up dirt in Idaho Falls this weekend
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IDAHO FALLS — A cadre of 35 professional bull riders will take the stage in Idaho Falls this weekend against 60 of the wildest bulls available.
Blackfoot’s own Brady Oleson — ranked 46th in the world among Professional Bull Riders — will be competing alongside riders from Australia, Canada and across the United States.
“We’ll be bringing these gladiators of modern day together to see who’s gonna be the champion over two days,” said Adam Libby, Libby Productions producer who organized the first-ever Teton Auto Group Idaho Falls Professional Bull Riders (PBR) event at the Hero Arena at the Mountain America Center.
The competition starts at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday and tickets have been sold out for nearly a month. Chad Berger Buckling Bulls from Mandan, North Dakota, is bringing 60 bulls for two-hours and twenty-minutes of action-packed bull riding and music.
“This is the first PBR event in the building ever!” said Kelsey Salsbery, director of marketing for the Mountain America Center and Hero Arena. “We’ve never had a bull-riding event here. It is a multi-year deal, so we will have this for years to come.”
Each rider will ride a bull both Friday and Saturday evening, and then the top 10 riders will advance to the short rounds, Libby said. Each round lasts eight seconds. The performance is scored with up to 50 points toward the man and up to 50 points toward the bull.
”Everybody wants to see that, you know, Danger Zone, right?” Libby said. “They want to see those guys and see what’s going to happen.”
The riders will be competing for a combined purse of $20,000.
“There’s always a little bit of nerves, but I think there’d have to be if you’re getting on a bull, right?” Oleson said. “It’s the same thing every week, but there’s always a different bull or a different city. … You expect to stay on for eight (seconds) and that’s all you can really do.”
Fellow professional bull rider Chase Outlaw, from Arkansas, said professionals harness all their energy and nerves and channel it to “step up to the line” and get on the back of that bull.
“You’re firing on all cylinders back there, but you got that reserve. The real adrenaline kicks in after you make the whistle and after you get off. The greatest high a man could ever feel is that right there,” Outlaw said. “You just trust in yourself and God and knowing what you’re doing. You really ain’t thinking about what you’re doing. It’s all muscle memory. It just all comes natural.”
The bull riders have both faced injuries that have proven obstacles in their careers. Outlaw had his face broken in thirty places, but returned to the highest level of the sport and continues achieving excellence.
That caliber of talent will be displayed front and center as spectators view the bulls and riders up-close in action.
“You take all of the best bull riders from all the local circuits, you bring them all together and you pick just the top 1%,” said Travis Zmack, managing partner for Teton Auto Group, which is sponsoring the event. “That’s the guys that we’re looking at. So the caliber of riders that we’re going to have here this weekend is unbelievable.”
PBR was one of the Mountain America Center’s “top three most requested events before we opened our doors,” according to Salsbery.
The evening will feature pyrotechnics and music where spectators can dance.
“It’s like a rock show within a rodeo,” Libby said.
