Pacheco With Back-To-Back Top 5 PBR Finishes

In what has been an unusual season, the PBR has begun looking more familiar the past few weeks. 

For the second event in a row, Kaique Pacheco, Jose Vitor Leme, and Daylon Swearingen qualified for the championship round as the two former World Champions make a late-season surge to contend for this year’s world title, while longtime Monster Energy bull rider Chase Outlaw returned to competition for the first time in 2024. 

Pacheco finished third in the average in Nampa, Idaho, and is now ranked 11th in the world standings. 

It was the first time this season, Pacheco has posted back-to-back Top 5 finishes at the elite, televised level of PBR competition.

Pacheco was 3-for-4 on the weekend, including an 89-point effort on Ricky Vaughn in the short round to momentarily give him the lead in the event over a trio of riders who left Pacheco with the option of choosing the same bull he set his career-high. Pacheco scored 93 on Ricky Vaughn to win the Indianapolis event in 2023. 

“That’s a cool little bull,” said two-time PBR World Champion turned CBS broadcaster Justin McBride, who reminded the top riders in the world, if they continue to leave a bull like Ricky Vaughn, Pacheco will select him every single time. McBride is also Pacheco’s head coach with the Nashville Stampede during the PBR Team Series. 

Like he did a year ago, Pacheco kept his shoulders square and the bull underneath him for the entire 8 seconds. 

Pacheco had been 84.25 points in the opening round and scored another 84 points in Round 3 before clinching his Top 5 finish with 89 points to close out the weekend with 257.25 points. 

While Pacheco, Leme, Swearingen, and Boudreaux Campbell where up north, Outlaw was in Fort Worth, Texas. The nine-time PBR World Finals qualifier finished second in the average at the weekly Cowtown Showdown and is expected to be in Texas again this coming Thursday. 

Outlaw is returning to competition from a compound fracture to his lower leg. 

He was expected to miss six months but has returned a month sooner.

“I got on a couple practice bulls in February and it didn’t feel good,” said Outlaw, in an interview reported by Kate Harrison on CBS Sports Network. “Got on a couple more a couple weeks ago, felt great, and now I’m ready to go.”

Outlaw indicated he will be ready for the upcoming team season — like Pacheco, he is a member of the Nashville Stampede — but, in the meantime, he is going to make a run at qualifying for the National Finals Rodeo “and those gold chutes.”