All-American Dodge, Midland/Odessa stores
1-3 p.m. Saturday
Andy Burelle and Dusty Tuckness flip for competition.
Whether it’s during a freestyle bullfight or on the Professional Bullfighters Daisy Protection Bullfight Tour, they get a kick out of handling animals and step up their game to meet the level of competition that’s before them.
“It’s just a feeling that I get doing it that’s unexplainable,” said Tuckness, 22, a second-generation bullfighter from Meeteetse, Wyo. “Yeah, there’s an adrenaline rush, but there’s more. There’s trying to manhandle a beast that weighs anywhere from 1,200 to 2,000 pounds, conquering the beast and trying to make it look like an art.”
During freestyle fights, both Tuckness and Burelle have been known to do backflips in an effort to impress the judges. But it’s their work in protection bullfighting that has impressed those who keep a close eye on the PBF.
“We work well together, that’s for sure,” said Burelle, 32, of Ardmore, Okla. “Dusty and I work together like we’re reading each other’s minds. He’s a 21-year-old version of me.”
The two worked so well together in late August 2008 that they swept the competition at the Miller Lite Bull Blowout in Denton, Texas, winning all three go-rounds and dominating the overall score.
“Andy and I started working together, and we’ve bonded so well,” Tuckness said. We don’t have to look at one another to know where the other’s going to be. We just know. We have a good chemistry for each other.”
They will stroll into the PBF Daisy Protection Bullfight World Championships – in cooperation with the SandHills Stock Show and Rodeo – as the No. 2 team in the standings, a mere 15 points behind the leading team, Steve Wangler of Plainview, Neb., and Jay Brewer of Graham, Texas.
“We just need to go in there and fight bulls the way we know how, and we’ll let the results happen,” Burelle said.