The retirements of Adriano Moraes and Justin McBride at the conclusion of the 2008 season left many people wondering how the PBR would go on without two of its most popular and talented riders.

“Sports have been doing that for a long time,” said Ty Murray in his weekly Podcast. “I think people felt that way about Bart Starr and Roger Staubach and so on and so forth through the years.

“You always have your young guys coming up, and as a sports fan, that’s the fun part of it to watch for me. I like seeing who the new guy is that’s going to take the reins, because it’s not always evident. Sometimes you see a young guy coming up with a ton of talent – it might not ever pan out – you see another guy coming up that’s really struggling, and then all of a sudden he starts finding his stride.”

“It’s been fun to watch,” he continued, “and it seems like in the PBR, as in other professional sports, it’s kind of rare to see a young guy come out of nowhere and just blast on to the scene and just dominate.”

Last year, Kody Lostroh beat out J. B. Mauney and Guilherme Marchi down the stretch for his first world title. At the time, he was 24 years old and in his fifth season on the Built Ford Tough Series.

This year’s race is wide open, with the Top 5 riders in the world – Austin Meier, Mauney, Renato Nunes, Valdiron de Oliveira and Mike Lee – each capable of going into Vegas as the No. 1 ranked rider in the world.

“You see those guys feeding off each other and making each other raise their game,” Murray said.

He went on to explain that there’s a “learning curve” and some “seasoning” that all the riders have to go through before becoming legitimate contenders for the title.

But ultimately, all 40 riders on the Built Ford Tough Series can affect the final standings.

Murray’s example was Colby Yates, whose seventh-place finish in Charlottesville, Va., last weekend pushed Mauney into eighth in the average. The difference of one spot pushed Mauney from 34 to 64 points off the overall lead in the world standings.

“It could change every single ride,” Murray said.

Murray’s entire interview can be heard here.

NEWS AND NOTES

Live Event Center: Follow all the action from this week’s BFTS event in Uncasville, Conn., including the fourth of five bonus rounds for the Top 10 riders, by logging on to the Event Center at www.pbr.com/live. The multimedia center provides live scoring, live blogging and event-related interviews.

— by Keith Ryan Cartwright