Records Smashed in Team Roping
By Ed Knocke
The heat that was generated at the ninth round of the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo Friday night was created by the team ropers.
Chad Masters of Clarksville, Tenn., and Jade Corkill of Fallon, Nev., smoked the field with a world record performance of 3.3 seconds, leaving JoJo LeMond and Randon Adams shaking their heads.
You see, LeMond and Adams had lowered the world mark to 3.4 seconds just moments earlier. Then it turned out that their outstanding run was no better than second place in the round. The original world mark of 3.5 seconds was held by four teams.
“That performance was extremely big for us,” said Masters. “We kind of got ourselves in a bind earlier in the week, and we might not still have much of a chance, but to have any chance at all, we figured we’d have to win the last two rounds. To have to be 3.3 to do it, you almost think it isn’t possible, but we lucked out and it turned out it was possible after all.”
Corkill said he couldn’t believe what had transpired. “No matter what happens tomorrow, this has been the greatest year I could ever imagine having,” he said. “It means everything to me to hold that record, and after having something like that happen tonight, if it’s meant to happen, it’s going to happen. We knew we had to win both rounds to have a chance, and get some help in the average, which I think we might have gotten from a couple teams tonight.”
You could say that the action inside Las Vegas’ Thomas and Mack Center was hotter than an asphalt highway in Texas in July. This kind of roping had not been seen since the 1997 NFR when four tie-down ropers broke the world record in a span of two days.
Ronnie Hyde started that parade in the eighth round with a record breaking 7.1-second run. The next day, Blair Burk followed with a 7-second run, Fred Whitfield with a 6.9 before Jeff Chapman recorded a 6.8 that stood as a world record until 2003.
With their victory, Masters and Corkill improved their first-place standing in the world championship race.
However, Luke Brown and Martin Lucero lead the average, which pays the winner $43,954 at the end of the rodeo. Brown trails Masters, who leads the world standings with $167,003, by $20,924 for the header title and could overcome Masters with a strong performance on Saturday.
Lucero, who had not been Brown’s partner all year, owns $157,532 for the lead among heelers, $17,222 better than second-place challenger Michael Jones.