Ron Kantowski talks with author Josh Peter about Las Vegas and the year he spent on the professional bull riders’ circuit

Saturday, Oct. 28, 2006 | 7:48 a.m.

What: Professional Bull Riders 2006 World Finals

When: 6 p.m. today; 3 p.m. Sunday

Where: Mandalay Bay Events Center

Tickets: $42-$168; www.ticketmaster.com

Also: 6 p.m. Thursday-Nov. 4, and 2 p.m. Nov. 5; Thomas & Mack Center; $30-$40; www.unlvtickets.com.

PETER'S PRINCIPLES

Author Josh Peter spent an entire year following the Professional Bull Riders circuit for his book, "Fried Twinkies, Buckle Bunnies and Bull Riders: A Year Inside the Professional Bull Riders Tour." The Sun took him on an eight-second ride by asking his opinion of the following:

Best honky-tonk on tour: The Cadillac Bar in Fort Worth, Texas. Authentic cowboy atmosphere. Nothing artificial about it. Be careful of the airborne beer bottles, though.

Best place to get a black eye on tour: He's going to kill me for saying this, but any bar on any night where Ross Coleman rode like a wuss and had too much to drink.

Best buckle bunnies on tour: Vegas, hands down. Every other city is fighting for second.

Best rider: Adriano Moraes of Brazil. One of a kind. His charisma is unsurpassed, and he has an unparalleled knowledge of bull-riding. Talking to him is like having a permanent hall pass.

I'm not saying that Josh Peter's book "Fried Twinkies, Buckle Bunnies and Bull Riders: A Year Inside the Professional Bull Riders Tour" captures the essence of the sport. But every time I turned a page I kept checking the bottom of my shoes.

The book is so authentic you could almost smell the arena.

Peter's book, a total-access review of the chase for the 2004 gold buckle, is a joy to read, even if you're a city slicker who has never owned a pair of Wranglers or driven a big ol' honkin' Dodge Duelie with mud flaps.

The book begins and ends in Las Vegas, with the 1993 and '94 PBR finals serving as bookends. (This year's finals run this weekend at Mandalay Bay and next at Thomas & Mack Center.) Naturally, those are the chapters I found the most intriguing - not so much because I live here, but because I occasionally like to have a beer, and when the PBR is in town, there are usually guys wearing cowboy hats in the places I occasionally go.

Maybe it's just coincidence. But I have found that where there is beer, Jack Daniel's and cowboy hats, it's usually only a matter of time until there is also broken glass and/or broken noses.

But, as Peter points out in the book, Las Vegas has a way of punching back.

He tells a story about watching Matt Bohon, a 21-year-old rube from Missouri, becoming mesmerized by the raucous casino atmosphere upon qualifying for the PBR finals.

Wrote Peter: "Bull riders were at the blackjack tables. Groupies were gawking. The drinks were coming. And so Bohon squeezed in at one of the tables, bought $400 worth of chips and prepared to break Mandalay Bay.

"Fifteen minutes later, Bohon's stack of chips was gone. Then he was gone, heading back to his room and trying to figure out how he had lost his money so fast."

Look at the bright side, Matt. Unless the dealer took your last dollar, you still had enough for a deep-fried Twinkie.

If you're wondering about the book's title, so was I. Peter told me on his first trip to town, he remembered seeing a Western-themed billboard advertising deep-fried Twinkies. At the time, there also was a caricature of a cowboy on the Twinkies package, so Peter figured there had to be a connection between the rodeo circuit and Twinkies, deep fried or otherwise.

There wasn't. Everywhere he went on tour, Peter asked if they had fried Twinkies.

"Deep-fried Twinkies?" said the concessions man at the Georgia Dome. "Haven't heard of that. Not yet."

"We don't have that many fryers," Peter was told at the Arrowhead Pond. "We need them for french fries."

"Why should we serve those? Sounds awful," said the guy in Indianapolis.

In Kansas City? Nope. "Maybe if you could barbecue it, we'd be interested."

It was like that in Greensboro and Fort Worth and Columbus and even in Bossier City, La., a place I've never been, but a place that also sounds like they'd eat gator, mudbugs and just about anything.

Peter had just about given up when he found himself on the corner of Third and Fremont in the heart of Glitter Gulch on Oct. 28, 2004, and spotted the electric video board above the entrance to Mermaids casino. He couldn't believe his eyes. A continuous loop was showing a woman seductively biting into a deep-friend concoction dusted with powdered sugar and covered with chocolate sprinkles that appeared to have a hunk of sponge cake in the middle.

"The Holy Grail," Peter wrote. "The deep-fried Twinkie of Las Vegas. The yearlong search had ended."

I must confess that while I am no stranger to Mermaids - you can still get a plastic cup of Icehouse beer for a buck in there - I have made it a point to bypass the deep-fried Twinkie in favor of the frozen chocolate-covered banana.

But as soon as I got off the phone with Peter I drove straight downtown. I did not pass go. I did not collect $200. I landed on Glitter Gulch's equivalent of Mediterranean Avenue, and handed Gilbert, the man on the deep fryer, a dollar.

"One deep-fried Twinkie," I said. "Keep the change."

It was disgusting.

It was decadent.

It was delicious.

"When I went on 'Cold Pizza' last year, I brought deep-fried Twinkies for everybody," Peter said. "I have yet to find somebody who said they didn't like them."

The deep-fried Oreos, on the other hand