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Swearingen Caps Massive Weekend by Leading Carolina to Second-Place Finish at Thunder Days

By: Justin Felisko

RIDGEDALE, Mo. – 2022 World Champion Daylon Swearingen could have easily told Carolina Cowboys coach Jerome Davis he needed a break on Sunday afternoon.

A weary Swearingen had spent the entire morning flying from North Dakota to Ridgedale, Missouri, after going 4-for-4 at the Minot Y’s Men PBR Challenger Series event in Minot, North Dakota, to clinch Chad Berger’s $100,000 King of the North Championship.

Swearingen, though, knew that part of the reason Carolina Cowboys General Manager Austin Dillon and team operator Richard Childress offered to use the Richard Childress Racing private jet to get Swearingen from Dallas on Sunday morning to Missouri for Championship Sunday at Thunder Days was for him to lead his teammates.

Therefore, Swearingen got on not just one, but two bulls on Sunday afternoon to help the Carolina Cowboys (14-8) leave Missouri with a second-place finish behind the 3-0 Texas Rattlers.

Swearingen first rode Hostage for 91.75 points in Carolina’s 261-89.5 victory over the Austin Gamblers (11-11) on Sunday afternoon.

 
The Cowboys then turned to their Iron Man for the Bonus Round, and Swearingen hung on to Montana Jacket for 4.62 seconds, good enough to break a three-way tie over Oklahoma (Chase Outlaw 4.12 seconds on Lone Survivor) – and Kansas City (Marcus Mast – 1.92 seconds on Cold Creek) after all three teams entered the Bonus Round at 2-1 apiece.

“I wanted to help the team,” Swearingen said. “I’m thankful I had the opportunity to go up there, they let me have the weekend off and now I’m here to help the team.”

Swearingen’s ride on Hostage also keeps him hot on the heels of Jose Vitor Leme in the $50,000 PBR Team Series MVP race. Leme leads Swearingen by a mere 9.75 points heading into Rattler Days in Fort Worth, Texas, on Oct. 7-9.

It was a busy, busy morning for Swearingen to simply get to Missouri in time for Thunder Days. In fact, it was a plan that quickly came to fruition late Saturday night as Swearingen was celebrating his $100,000 King of the North Championship. (Arizona’s Keyshawn Whitehorse finished runner-up in the King of the North title race and took home a Capri Camper).

The original plan was for Swearingen to fly commercial all the way to Missouri and simply hope he made it on time with no delays on Sunday.

Instead, Dillon had different plans.

Swearingen drove 2 hours from Minot to make a 6:30 commercial flight on Sunday morning to Dallas. From Dallas, Swearingen hopped a ride to Meacham International Airport in Fort Worth where the RCR plane was waiting for him, seeing as NASCAR was already in Fort Worth this weekend.

The reigning World Champion then easily landed at Branson Airport, which is roughly 25 minutes from Ridgedale, with plenty of time to prepare and ride for the Cowboys at Thunder Days. Carolina also let three-time World Champion Silvano Alves, who came up just short in his own bid for the King of the North title, to fly with Swearingen on the private flight so he could ride for the Nashville Stampede.

“The private flight came up last night after I won,” Swearingen said. “Austin said, ‘Let me see what I can do.’ Calls me back and says, ‘Hey, they’ll pick you up, this, this, this,’ and I said, ‘Okay!’”

Davis was thrilled with Dillon and Childress’ commitment to finding a way to get the team’s star player to Missouri on time for Sunday’s action.

“We knew he had a regular flight getting into here, but when Richard found out he was getting to Fort Worth, and his plane was there already, he told us he’s on it,” Davis said. “That’s what’s cool about having Richard, Austin and them guys. They get it.”

Carolina could have blocked Swearingen from competing in Minot this weekend. The team is in the thick of the PBR Team Series Championship race, and the first-place team was certainly nervous about their star rider getting hurt at a PBR Challenger Series event.

However, coach Davis said Carolina fully supported Swearingen pursuing a big payday, and he knew Swearingen would give his team everything he had on Sunday afternoon.

“When you let a guy like Daylon get up there and take a risk on all of them bulls, it is risky, but at the end of the day, we wanted to do what’s good for the guys,” Davis said. “We get it, we know he’s a young guy and you have to get it when you can. If we didn’t think he had a good shot to win it, we wouldn’t have done it. It worked out, he didn’t get hurt and we win our first game the first night. It would’ve taken one more bull ride last night, but we’ve got him today, he was here and he’s pretty pumped.

“There’s a lot of teams that wouldn’t let Daylon do that. At the end of the day, we have the say-so on what’s happening, but it worked out and we made it happen tonight.”

Follow Justin Felisko on Twitter @jfelisko

Photo courtesy of Andy Watson/Bull Stock Media

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