RIDGEDALE, Mo. — The Missouri Thunder arrived home at Thunder Ridge Nature Arena on Friday carrying a six-game winning streak.
By Sunday afternoon, the other kind of thunder had arrived.
Thunder rolled across the Ozarks. Lightning stopped the action — twice. Rain poured over the outdoor arena overlooking Table Rock Lake until an event called Thunder Days had quite literally become Thunder Days.
Sitting there in my Action Trackchair, I eventually found myself waiting out part of the storm inside a family bathroom before we were moved farther inside, where the venue provided snacks while everyone waited for the weather to clear.
It was a fitting final chapter to a weekend that had already lived up to its name.
Missouri entered Bass Pro Shops PBR Thunder Days presented by DoorDash one game out of first place and riding a franchise-record six-game winning streak. The Thunder won Friday, beat their in-state rival Saturday and stretched that streak to eight before Austin finally stopped it Sunday.
By the time the weekend was over, Missouri had positioned itself so close to the top of PBR Teams that 17 games of competition were separated by barely half a point.
And somehow, all of that seemed fitting in a place called Nature’s Arena.
I have been around bull riding for most of my life, and Thunder Ridge may be the most beautiful place I have ever watched one. Sitting in the Ozarks overlooking Table Rock Lake, it doesn’t feel like somebody built an arena and then tried to decorate around it. It feels like somebody found one of the prettiest places in Missouri and figured out how to put world-class bull riding in the middle of it.
There is a reason they call it Nature’s Arena.
There is also a reason Thunder Days feels different from another stop on the schedule.
Johnny Morris, founder of Bass Pro Shops and the man behind Cabela’s, Thunder Ridge and the Missouri Thunder, has helped create a weekend where bull riding shares the stage with the outdoors and country music. Friday evening, Chris Janson performed before the bull riding began. During his concert, two fans got engaged, and Janson brought them onstage to dance to his hit “Done.”
For a few minutes, before the bulls ever came out of the chutes, competition could wait. Two people had just decided to spend their lives together, thousands of people were watching, and country music supplied the soundtrack.
Saturday night flipped the order. Miranda Lambert closed the evening after the bull riding, sending the crowd out under the Ozarks sky after another night at Nature’s Arena.
But whether the music came before or after, the centerpiece of Thunder Days remained the same.
Bull riding.
And the home team gave Missouri plenty to cheer about.
Friday came down to the final out.
Macaulie Leather put the Thunder on the board with 88.20 points aboard White Out, who was marked 42.30. But Florida answered enough to force Missouri into a position where Paulo Eduardo Rossetto had to deliver.
Rossetto had already been through two rerides before finally drawing Special Ops, marked 42.45.
The Thunder needed him.
He answered.
Rossetto rode for 87.60 points, giving Missouri a 175.80-173.15 walk-off victory and pushing the winning streak to seven.
If Friday was dramatic, Saturday was personal.
Missouri and the Kansas City Outlaws weren’t simply playing another game. It was the Show-Me State Showdown — Missouri against Missouri, with bragging rights attached.
Rossetto wasted little time setting the tone.
He covered Scrappy (43.60 bull score) for 90.50 points, extending his streak to nine consecutive qualified rides — the second-longest active streak and third-longest in PBR Teams history at the time. Julio Cesar Marques followed with 88.55 aboard Margin of Error, and Missouri native Maverick Smith added 87.90 on Smores after the outcome had already been decided.
The Thunder won 266.95-177.60.
Eight straight.
More importantly, Missouri had taken care of its in-state rival in front of its home-state crowd and moved itself directly into the fight for first place.
Yet the best individual performance of Thunder Days belonged to a man wearing Gambler green.
Three-time PBR World Champion and two-time PBR Teams MVP Jose Vitor Leme arrived in Ridgedale already riding at a level few men in this sport ever reach.
Then he somehow raised it.
Friday, Leme covered Husky, marked 42.80, for 89.40 points to reach 10 consecutive qualified rides.
Saturday, Krispy Kreme was marked 42.80, and Leme answered with 88.35 to make it 11 straight and take sole possession of the PBR Teams record.
Sunday, Getcha Some became No. 12.
Leme covered Getcha Some, marked 42.65, for 87.90 points, extending the record again and becoming the only rider in PBR Teams history to record four consecutive perfect 3-for-3 events.
Twelve bulls.
Twelve whistles.
And Leme left Ridgedale leading the PBR Teams MVP race at 1,328.85 aggregate points after riding 15 of 17 bulls this season — an 88.24% riding percentage.
Rossetto wasn’t going away quietly, either. On Sunday, he covered Stryker for 83.85 points to extend his own streak to 10 consecutive qualified rides, completing a perfect 3-for-3 weekend at Thunder Days. He left Ridgedale second in the MVP standings at 1,233.05, just 95.80 aggregate points behind Leme, keeping two of the league’s hottest riders locked in one of the season’s most compelling individual races.
Leme won the league MVP in 2022 and 2023.
Now he is chasing a third.
Leme wasn’t the only one who left Missouri having changed the conversation.
Two teams entered Thunder Days outside the league’s top three and left Ridgedale undefeated.
The Oklahoma Wildcatters arrived at 5-9. They left at 8-9 after going a perfect 3-0.
Friday, Kase Hitt’s 88.60 points aboard I’ll Make Ya Famous were enough to beat Kansas City by 1.85 points.
Saturday required more. Kaiden Loud rode Irish Car Bomb for 89.20 before Marcelo Procopio Pereira came off the bench on a reride and delivered 88.05 aboard veteran Mike’s Motive, allowing Oklahoma to edge Austin 177.25-175.15.
Then Sunday — after all that thunder, lightning, rain and waiting — Loud struck again with 88.75 aboard El Chapo before Eduardo Matos covered The Heat for 88.90.
Oklahoma beat the reigning PBR Teams Champion Carolina Cowboys 177.65-177.40.
One-quarter of one point.
While Oklahoma was putting together its perfect weekend, the Texas Rattlers were doing the same.
Texas went 3-0 at Thunder Days, capped by a 177.65-177.20 victory over Nashville on Sunday. The undefeated weekend moved the Rattlers to 10-7 and No. 4 in the standings, only one game behind the three teams tied at the top.
Sunday briefly opened the door even wider for the home team. Nashville and Carolina both lost, meaning a Missouri victory over Austin would have sent the Thunder out of their homestand alone at No. 1 in the league. Instead, Austin prevailed 261.50-256.60, snapping Missouri’s franchise-record eight-game winning streak.
The missed opportunity hardly left Missouri far behind.
Nashville, Missouri and Carolina all finished Thunder Days at 11-6.
Nashville remained No. 1 with 3,537.80 aggregate points.
Missouri sat No. 2 with 3,537.25.
The difference?
0.55 points.
After 17 games and 85 outs for each team, Nashville and Missouri had each recorded 40 qualified rides. The Stampede and Thunder had traveled different paths through the season and somehow arrived at virtually the same place, leaving first and second separated only by the league’s aggregate-score tiebreaker.
Missouri missed its chance to leave home atop the standings, but it left Thunder Ridge no longer chasing Nashville from a game back. The Thunder were virtually alongside the Stampede, while Texas had moved within one game of the three-way tie at the top.
Thunder Days didn’t give Missouri the perfect ending it wanted.
It gave the entire league a tighter race.
That may be the best way to remember the weekend — not as one ride, one result or even one rainstorm, but as everything Thunder Days became.
World-class bull riders and bulls surrounded by the Ozarks. Chris Janson playing before Friday’s bull riding as a newly engaged couple danced onstage. Miranda Lambert closing Saturday night. Missouri taking the Show-Me State Showdown. Leme rewriting the record book. Rossetto answering with a perfect 3-for-3 weekend and a 10-ride streak of his own. Oklahoma and Texas both going 3-0. Three teams leaving with identical 11-6 records — and another sitting just one game behind them.
Then, on Sunday afternoon, thunder cracked across Nature’s Arena and rain stopped the competition twice.
Missouri had brought its own storm home to the Ozarks.
Before Thunder Days was over, Nature’s Arena answered with one of its own.
Photo courtesy of Bull Stock Media