No. 3 Kasel Ready to Fight for a World Title at 2023 PBR World Finals
By: Darci Miller
PUEBLO, Colo. – Could 2023 be Dalton Kasel’s coming-out party?
With the 2023 PBR World Finals beginning tomorrow, May 12, in Fort Worth, Texas (8:30 p.m. ET on CBS Sports Network), Kasel sits at No. 3 in the Unleash The Beast standings, just 231.34 points behind No. 1 Kaique Pacheco.
He’s never been closer to winning a World Championship, and he’s never been more of a star.
Dubbed Mr. 90 Points, Kasel leads the league with five 90-point rides and eight round wins this season. He’s won two Unleash The Beast events and two 15/15 Bucking Battles after kicking his season off with a Pendleton Whisky Velocity Tour win at the Ouncie Mitchell Memorial Invitational in November.
Kasel’s 44% riding percentage (21-for-47) this season is the highest of his career since debuting and winning Rookie of the Year in 2019.
However, heading into the World Finals, Kasel says he hasn’t felt any negative effects from the added expectations.
“You know, it hasn’t really changed anything too much,” Kasel said at the PBR Cooper Tires Invitational, presented by Kubota, in Louisville, Kentucky, two weeks ago. “It’s made it more fun going, I guess, to a certain extent. Each week, it’s like, ‘Dang, I’m able to win the world.’ It’s something I’ve dreamed of since I was a little kid; I always wanted to be a World Champion. So it’s right here at my fingertips, and I just have to keep going and just keep doing what I have been all throughout the year.”
Things very nearly got derailed, though, when Kasel missed a month of competition late in the season. He returned to action in Louisville, the final event of the regular season.
“Just felt good, going to physical therapy,” Kasel said. “I love riding bulls, so I’m ready to be back as soon as I can, and I felt like this was going to be the best time to come back.
“I figured that it would be good to have some sort of momentum going into Finals instead of going cold turkey and getting on the best bulls there are in the world. Get a little wakeup call coming to the same kind of deal.”
Kasel finished ninth in Louisville, going 1-for-3 with an 86.25-point ride on Try Me in Round 2.
Maybe not the performance he’d wanted, but simply being back in the saddle – so to speak – was a relief.
“It was extremely frustrating (to sit out),” Kasel said. “It was like, ‘Dang, this couldn’t have happened at a worse time.’ But I had to think of it positively, and it’s all in God’s plan that he has for me. So whether it was sitting out for a month or not being able to ride until I’m back for Finals, then that’s what it was, and I had to just trust that everything was going to be okay.”
While he may have physically been out of the picture, Kasel was never mentally too far away. He admits that he watched all the premier series events and Velocity Tour events because bull riding consumes his life.
He’s laser-focused on winning his first world title, and with No. 1 Pacheco out of World Finals due to a broken leg, Kasel is set to battle it out with No. 2 Jose Vitor Leme and No. 4 Cooper Davis, who have three world titles between them.
From the beginning of the season, Kasel knew it would ultimately come down to this group at the top of the standings. Davis won the second event of the season, and Leme won two events back-to-back to start the new year.
“You couldn’t write it up any different, really, in my mind,” Kasel said. “I know that I had to ask Jack (Holmberg, PBR competition judging director) when Jose was coming back. And there wasn’t really anything to it. It was cool because I told him, I was like, ‘I’m coming back this week,’ and he’s like, ‘Cool, Jose is too.’”
The two are teammates on the Austin Gamblers in the PBR Team Series and have gotten closer since donning the same uniform last fall.
Leme, of course, has dominated the PBR since 2020 and won’t be giving up his spot at the top that easily. But Kasel is ready for a battle and prepared to step out of his teammate’s shadow.
“I think I’ve kind of been under the radar my whole career about winning the world, but in my mind, it hasn’t been like that,” Kasel said. “It’s just being on top, and I like winning. I can’t tolerate losing.”
Photo courtesy of Josh Homer/Bull Stock Media
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