By Mandi McCary
PALM SPRINGS, Calif. – In front of a rowdy Friday night crowd at Acrisure Arena, 2022 PBR World Champion Daylon Swearingen (Piffard, New York) was flawless, winning Round 1 of the PBR (Professional Bull Riders) Wrangler Greater Palm Springs Unleash The Beast (UTB) event.
Rocketing from the chutes aboard Mr. Demon, the 2022 PBR World Champion earned an 88.5-point win that netted 28 UTB points. Swearingen, who rides for the Carolina Cowboys in the separate PBR Teams league, moved from No. 32 to No. 28 as he heads into the second day of the event atop the leaderboard.
As the 2025 season dwindles down ahead of the PBR World Finals May 8-18 in Texas, the world title race tightened on night one in Palm Springs. Continuing his hot streak just one week after winning in Louisville, No. 2-ranked Dalton Kasel (Muleshoe, Texas) narrowed the gap between himself and world leader Brady Fielder (Clermont, Queensland, Australia) to just 76 points.
Riding his seventh consecutive bull, Kasel soared through the air aboard Black Harbor for 86.25 points to sit in eighth place on the leaderboard while Fielder’s matchup with Slick Rick ended after a mere 3.12 seconds.
The opening night of the three-day event in Palm Springs featured the 11th installment of the Monster Energy Team Challenge, presented by Camping World, an extension of the PBR Teams league that brings head-to-head, team-vs.-team bull riding games to the sport’s elite individual tour.
Despite Arizona dominating the past two matchups with Oklahoma, their hopes of a three-peat were dashed. The Wildcatters clinched the win in the final rivalry matchup by a narrow 2.25 points.
Oklahoma’s score was courtesy of Cort McFadden’s (Novice, Texas) matchup with In My Blood, earning an 87.5-point ride score. The monumental walk-off win for his team also netted the 21-year-old fourth place in the round. Earning 16 UTB points, McFadden held strong at No. 10 in the world standings.
Bruno Carvalho (Alvares Florence, Brazil) was the lone man to convert for the Ridge Riders on Friday night. His 85.25-point ride on Buckaroo put him in ninth place on the leaderboard, earning 11 UTB points to hold at No. 44.
Kasel’s Austin Gamblers teammate and 2018 PBR World Champion Kaique Pacheco (Itatiba, Brazil) and Swearingen’s Carolina teammate, 19-year-old phenom Ethan Winkler (Winnie, Texas), both earned 17.5 UTB points for their second-place-yielding 87.75-point scores. Pacheco first bested Fatal Attraction while Winkler followed on Time Traveler.
Pacheco’s ride moved him up one spot from No. 9 to No. 8 in the standings, while Winckler jumped up two spots from No. 43 to No. 41.
Rounding out the Top 5 was seven-time PRCA World Champion Sage Steele Kimzey (Strong City, Oklahoma) completing the trifecta of Austin Gamblers athletes on fire in Palm Springs. Kimzey outlasted Mo Money for 87.25 points and, collecting 15 UTB points, held at No. 3 in the gold buckle race.
Action for the Wrangler PBR Greater Palm Springs will continue with Round 2 on Saturday, March 22, at 6:45 p.m. PT.
All four rounds of competition in California will be available LIVE and FREE on PBR’s X channel (https://x.com/PBR), RidePass on Pluto TV, PBR’s YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@pbr), PBR’s mobile app (https://qrco.de/bdtdKp), and PBR’s app on connected TVs, including Apple TV, Fire TV, Roku and Google TV. The stream for the Wrangler PBR Greater Palm Springs continues on Saturday, March 22.
PBR RidePass on Pluto TV will offer re-airs and on-demand replays of PBR Unleash The Beast events and is available on desktops, laptops and mobile devices via www.pluto.tv.
PBR Unleash The Beast – Wrangler PBR Greater Palm Springs
Acrisure Arena – Palm Springs, California
Event Leaders (Round 1-Round 2-Round 3-Event Aggregate-Event Points)
1. Daylon Swearingen, 88.5-0-0-0-88.50-28 Points.
2. Kaique Pacheco, 87.75-0-0-0-87.75-17.5 Points.
(tie). Ethan Winckler, 87.75-0-0-0-87.75-17.5 Points.
4. Cort McFadden, 87.5-0-0-0-87.50-16 Points.
5. Sage Steele Kimzey, 87.25-0-0-0-87.25-15 Points.
6. Julio Cesar Marques, 87-0-0-0-87.00-14 Points.
7. Alan de Souza, 86.5-0-0-0-86.50-13 Points.
8. Dalton Kasel, 86.25-0-0-0-86.25-12 Points.
9. Bruno Carvalho, 85.25-0-0-0-85.25-11 Points.
10. Andrew Alvidrez, 85-0-0-0-85.00-10 Points.
11. Anderson de Oliveira, 84-0-0-0-84.00-9 Points.
12. Koltin Hevalow, 83.5-0-0-0-83.50-8 Points.
13. Paulo Eduardo Rossetto, 82.75-0-0-0-82.75-8 Points.
14. Adriano Salgado, 77-0-0-0-77.00
Brady Fielder, 0-0-0-0-0.00
John Crimber, 0-0-0-0-0.00
Luciano De Castro, 0-0-0-0-0.00
Keyshawn Whitehorse, 0-0-0-0-0.00
Dener Barbosa, 0-0-0-0-0.00
Claudio Montanha Jr., 0-0-0-0-0.00
Elizmar Jeremias, 0-0-0-0-0.00
Kaiden Loud, 0-0-0-0-0.00
Eduardo Aparecido, 0-0-0-0-0.00
Felipe Furlan, 0-0-0-0-0.00
Derek Kolbaba, 0-0-0-0-0.00
Clay Guiton, 0-0-0-0-0.00
Leonardo Castro, 0-0-0-0-0.00
João Ricardo Vieira, 0-0-0-0-0.00
Mason Taylor, 0-0-0-0-0.00
Vinicius Pinheiro Correa, 0-0-0-0-0.00
Daniel Keeping, 0-0-0-0-0.00
Leandro Zampollo, 0-0-0-0-0.00
Alex Cerqueira, 0-0-0-0-0.00
Mauricio Gulla Moreira, 0-0-0-0-0.00
Everton Natan da Silva, 0-0-0-0-0.00
Guilherme Valleiras, 0-0-0-0-0.00
Nick Tetz, 0-0-0-0-0.00
Dustin Herman, 0-0-0-0-0.00
Aaron Williams, 0-0-0-0-0.00
Kase Hitt, 0-0-0-0-0.00
Carlos Andre de Oliveira, 0-0-0-0-0.00
Hagen Braswell, 0-0-0-0-0.00
Photo courtesy of Bull Stock Media
