Barker cashes in on good bull as Rodeo closes.

Byline: Chris Hansen The Register-Guard

After being eliminated from the Firecracker Bull Ride Sunday night, Charlie Barker stood and watched from atop the bucking chutes as Sev Carden won the event on the final ride.

Carden, Barker recalled, had drawn a good bull.

Wednesday, in the third and final performance of the Eugene Pro Rodeo, Barker drew the same bull, and the results were just as good.

In front of an estimated crowd of 8,000 at the Oregon Horse Center, the 26-year-old from Terrebonne recorded 85 points on the first ride of the night to move into first place and eventually win the bull ride competition.

"That bull's made a lot of money for me and Sev this week," chuckled Barker, who won $1,912.35. "I knew he was going to be something a guy could win on."

The bull lived up to expectations.

"He's a good one," said Barker, who is ranked No. 2 in the Columbia River Circuit. "He just blew out of there and bucked real hard for a couple and then just started spinning."

Clint Johnson was the leader coming into the night after his 83-point ride on Tuesday. His second-place finish still earned him $1,448.75.

Earlier in the night, Barker posted a 7-second time in the steer wrestling competition to put him in a tie for fifth place overall and in line for $470.49 check. It helped keep him from thinking too much about his upcoming bull ride.

"I'm the type of person where the less I think about it the better I'm going to probably do," Barker said. "I like to keep my mind other places and have fun."

Barker wasn't the only cowboy successfully pulling double duty on Wednesday.

B.J. Campbell, a former Columbia River Circuit all-around champion and three-time National Finals Rodeo qualifier, tied for first place in steer wrestling with a time of 5.9 seconds and finished second overall in the team roping with partner Dustin Bird at 5.3.

"Some of these rodeos get real rapid with four-second or three-second times, but this one here is a little easier," said Campbell, 28, from Benton City, Wash. "I haven't had a very good week, so I was just trying to go back to the basics and have a good, strong finish."

Campbell and Bird were actually in the lead until eventual winners Riley Minor and Brady Minor set an arena record with a time of 4.4. The previous mark was 5.0 set in 1994 by Mike Beers and Dee Picket.

Coincidently, Beers, an 18-time NFR qualifier, and his son Brandon Beers, immediately followed the Minors but posted a no-time.

Also winning on Wednesday was barrel racer Molly Davis of Lebanon.

Davis, in the last race of the competition, recorded a time of 17.51 to narrowly edge Codi Baucom, who had scored a 17.52 in Monday's slack performance.

A pair of scores held up from Saturday's opening night, including Bobby Mote's 82 in the bareback competition.

No one came closer than six points to Mote's score. The top mark on Wednesday was a 76 posted by Coburg's Bryan Miller. That put him in fifth place.

"This was my first time I got to have family around for me and it felt good," said Miller, 30, a 1995 graduate of Sheldon High School.

"I am happy everything went well and I got off without any injuries."

Cody Jones, who recorded a time of 8.8 in the tie-down roping on Saturday, held on to win, and Matt Marvel, who scored a 79 in Tuesday's saddle bronc competition, won that event.