Professional Bull Riders invade Las Vegas for annual World Finals

By Case Keefer (contact)

Wednesday, Oct. 20, 2010 | 2:05 a.m.

Austin Meier and J.B. Mauney usually root for each other.

They’ve bonded over the last six years as two of the top competitors on the Professional Bull Riders circuit. Forgive them if that doesn’t seem to matter this week at the Thomas & Mack Center.

Meier and Mauney enter the PBR World Finals battling for the 2010 Built Ford Tough Series championship. Meier currently leads Mauney by 214 points at the top of the standings.

“That’s one bull ride on one night,” said Sean Gleason, president and COO of PBR. “It all depends on one night that could change everything. It’s that close.”

The World Finals, which are held annually in Las Vegas, kick off tonight and run through Sunday.

Both Meier and Mauney are fighting for their first championship. Mauney has finished second in each of the last two years, while Meier finished the 2009 season in sixth.

“This is the pinnacle of my career at this point,” Meier said. “To pull it off, I need to stay focused and really concentrate on the bulls.”

It’s appropriate that Meier and Mauney are the two battling it out for the title. Their lives have followed similar paths. The 23-year olds were born four days apart and both grew up in cowboy families.

Meier rode his first sheep when he was 2 years old. Meyer followed at age 3. Both were hooked from the first time they rode a bull and were rookies on the PBR tour in 2005.

They won a PBR World Cup, the bull riding equivalent to the Olympics, as teammates in 2009.

“We’ve competed with each other, lost to each other and matured with each other through the years,” Meier said. “He’s a great competitor, a great bull rider and dangerous for what he can do.”

Mauney, a North Carolina native, is threatening to become the first American PBR champion born east of the Mississippi River.

Meier, an Oklahoma native, has held the points lead longer than any other rider this year, but the standings have changed constantly. Gleason said the lead had changed eight times, which made it one of the craziest seasons he remembered in PBR.

“From a competition perspective, it couldn’t have been more exciting,” Gleason said. “It’s been a little dramatic. Austin, from my perspective, has been the most consistent.”

Although Meier has a slight edge in the points, Mauney has more top-10 finishes this season and ranks higher on the money list.

Two Brazilians also have outside shots at the title. Renato Nunes and Valdiron de Oliveira are 1,300 and 1,500 points behind Meier, respectively.

“This whole year has just been a phenomenal blessing for me,” Meier said. “I’ve had my best year and coming here to Vegas, it means you’ve done a good job to get here.”

Case Keefer can be reached at 948-2790 or [email protected]. Follow Case on Twitter at twitter.com/casekeefer.