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Cross waits 90 minutes to claim round win  

 
 
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (February 6, 2010) - Ned Cross knows what’s like to wait.

The relative newcomer waited out four events over two months after having the event of his life in Atlanta, which also served as the final Challenger Finals, to see if was would still be ranked in Top 30 after the first cut of the Built Ford Tough Series.

By comparison, the hour and a half he waited last night to see if his 89-point effort on Outa Da Blue would hold up as the high marked ride of the round was nothing.

“That’s a real nice bull,” said Cross, who has now covered five of seven bulls this season and is ranked 24th in the world. “And good enough to get you the round win, so you can’t ask for anything more than that. … You never know—89 is a good score but with all these riders you never know. You just kind of gotta wait and see.”

Cross won the opening round of the Winston-Salem Invitational presented by Troy-Bilt and was followed by Josh Koschel (88.75), Cody Campbell and Wiley Petersen, who split third and fourth with 87.5.  After that, there was a four-way tie among Skeeter Kingsolver, J.B. Mauney, Billy Robinson and Austin Meier with 87.25.

Cross’ winning ride led off the second flight.

The 24-year-old from Midland, Ore., was nervous about falling off, because the guys in the locker room would given him a hard time had that been the outcome. Outa da Blue has been ridden 13 of 21 times at a BFTS event in the past three seasons for an average of score of 88.63 points

Cross easily made the whistle and then had to wait around for 31 of the 40 outs before admitting it was “awesome” to hear his name announced as the round winner.

“I guess the next thing to look for is event winner,” said Cross, who knew a big weekend back in Atlanta would “set [him] up for the rest of the season.”

With a pen full of North Carolina bulls, the Tar Heel faithful came alive during the introductions of Shane Proctor, Brian Canter, and of course, last year’s Winston-Salem event winner Mauney, who is from nearby Mooresville.

Unfortunately, both Canter and Proctor came down well short of the whistle. Mauney, on the other hand, brought the somewhat subdued crowed to its feet with his ride on Frosty.

Even Robinson, who is from neighboring Virginia, elicited a roar from the crowd inside the LJVM Coliseum, home of the Wake Forest Demon Deacons, when he made the whistle on Look Out.

The two-day event concludes tonight with the final two rounds, which can be seen live on Versus beginning at 8 p.m. ET.

NEWS and NOTES

Carolina blues: Wyoming native J.C. Navarro came to North Carolina to work with Jerome Davis for what was going to be two weeks. That was more than four years ago, which is why the youngster is disappointed not to be able to compete this weekend in Winston-Salem.

“I really wanted to,” he said. “I had a bunch of people coming to watch me ride here.”

Navarro separated his left shoulder last weekend in Tampa, Fla., and tore the AC ligaments. He won’t need surgery, but he’ll need six to eight weeks to strengthen the muscle. After a week of complete rest, he’s hoping to start working on his range of motion this coming week.

“It was real disappointing,” said Navarro of the injury, “especially since I made the short round and I wasn’t able to get on in the short round.”

Bullish weather: It’s a good thing that the bulls are housed in a barn at the fairground next door to the LJVM Coliseum. There’s been unseasonably cold weather here this week.

On Tuesday, Rick Wagoner, who is from nearby Lexington, N.C., loaded up his bulls, including reigning World Champion Code Blue, and hauled them to an indoor facility in Charlotte.

“The bulls had been in Florida at that temperature,” Wagoner said, “and they got ice here a week or so ago and eight inches of snow, and I just didn’t want to pull the bulls from one temperature back into a cold deal when they had been down in Florida. So we made a decision to take them to an insulated building.”

Travel woes: With the bad weather, there was some concern that a few of the riders wouldn’t make it to Friday night’s opening round, but they all arrived at the Coliseum in time.

Bullfighter Frank Newsom drove all night from Atlanta after his flight was canceled. He doesn’t have his luggage, which he’s now having sent right on to Oklahoma City, so he stopped along the way and bought some new gear. Ryan McConnel made the same drive Friday morning.

Versus broadcaster Craig Hummer was stranded in Chicago last night. His flight from Los Angeles sat out on the tarmac for three hours before finally taking off, and by the time he arrived in the Windy City, all flights from Chicago to North Carolina were canceled.

He’s hoping to arrive on a flight early this afternoon. There’s no word on the travel plans for Leah Garcia and Justin McKee, so here’s to hoping J.W. Hart doesn’t find himself in the broadcast booth by himself tonight.

Me and my gang: He hadn’t stayed on a bull since New York City, so Rocky McDonald decided it was time for a change. He got himself a helmet, and a Jack Daniel’s bandana. It was quite a fashion statement.

“I needed to change something,” McDonald said afterward, “so I put (the helmet) on and it worked. … I’ve been sucking lately and I hadn’t stayed on a bull since New York, and it was the same one, so I don’t know, I put me a do-rag on and a helmet and went back to having fun at this sport.”

The other two members of his “little gang” are Beau Hill, who needs some mojo of his own, and Austin Meier — neither of whom were wearing do-rags.

McDonald, who wore a helmet up until five years ago, is competing as an alternate, but the majority of his lower-level money was won last year in Australia, so before the second cut he needs to work his way back into the Top 30. Hill, on the other hand, has this week and next to make up the 130 points he needs to enter the Top 30.

He’s a super freak: Brian Canter debuts his new bull Superfreak tonight. He wasn’t even a year old when Canter bought him online at the Breeders Connection after seeing a video in which he kicked so hard over his head he actually fell down a couple of times.

“He turned out to be a really good bull for me and Jerome (Davis),” said Canter, who isn’t interested in becoming a stock contractor, but plans to raise bucking bulls. “The longer you keep them, the more money you (have) to spend, so you might as well get rid of ‘em while you can.”

Described as a good spinner, Superfreak is small but has a lot of heart—sounds a lot like his owner. “You betcha,” said Canter, who laughed at the obvious comparison.

Event Center: Follow all the action from Winston-Salem, N.C., 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.

—by Keith Ryan Cartwright

PBRnow.com