Gomes handled pressure

Thursday, Dec. 2, 1999 | 3:50 a.m.

PRCA

Mark Gomes

World titles: 1998 World Champion Bareback Rider

Hometown: Hutchinson, Kan.

Date of birth: Dec. 16, 1969

Height/weight: 5-7, 150 pounds

1998 earnings: $142,530

1998 NFR earnings: $88,602

Joined PRCA: 1994

NFR qualifications: 5 (1994-95, '97-99)

The bareback riding race was Spandex-tight going into the final round of the 1998 National Finals Rodeo.

Mark Gomes, the 28-year-old bareback rider from Hutchinson, Kan., led the pack and the average race going into the rodeo's grand finale.

But he didn't lead by much. In fact, Gomes had watched a once-dominating 13-point lead in the average race dwindle down to just two points. To add some dynamite to that pressure cooker, Larry Sandvick was the guy chasing him in the average -- the same Larry Sandvick who trailed Gomes by just $2,390. And, at the NFR, that kind of cash is next to nothing.

Simply put, Sandvick was guaranteed the world title if he scored three points higher than Gomes in the final round.

That kind of pressure might have sent lesser men running for the hills.

But Gomes said it was just the medicine he needed.

"It was probably the best thing that could've happened to me," Gomes said. "I had to bear down and ride."

He had drawn the near-legendary Beutler Brothers and Cervi horse Skoal's Brown Bomber, who carried Billy Laye to a 90-point, NFR record-setting ride in 1995. He also sent Gomes to the dirt earlier in 1998 at a rodeo in Casper, Wyo.

Gomes placed in seven straight rounds -- winning three of them -- and notched an event-record $88,602.