Audio Slide Show: Buck wild

LEWISTON-Some of them were kneeling, cowboy hats off to one side - apparently in prayer. A few hopped and stretched their arms and legs into seemingly impossible positions. One guy jumped up and down in the air with one arm flailing out to the side.

The best way to prepare yourself for riding a 2,000-pound bucking bull, according to bull rider Craig Jackson, 25, of Houston, is to stay calm.

"It's best to just breathe and go out there. I think it's better when you just relax," Jackson said Friday night, about a half-hour before jumping on himself at the first night of Professional Bull Riders Lewiston Invitational Enterprise Tour at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee.

Breathe. For Jackson, maybe it's easy - he's been doing it since he was a kid. "You know, my daddy put me on...calves and steers on up to bulls. I probably got on my first calf at like, 5 or 6 years old," he said.

For the fans it's another thing entirely. "These guys have to be a tad bit crazy," Melissa Alexander of Turner said before the competition. "It's raw."

Raw. Eight seconds doesn't seem long, until bull and rider are released from the enclosure, the bull throwing his hind legs up in the air and throwing the rider viciously up and down and from side to side. Most of the riders don't manage to stay on more than four or five.

Three guys made it, and earned points for style and control. One got as far as 7.4 before being heaved off and onto the ground. It's a crash landing no matter how long they stay on. Even the point-earners fall off onto their backs when the buzzer sounds.

"It's eight seconds to get a score. Anything else is extra. You don't get bonus points or anything - it's probably best to just get off," Jackson said. Bull riding is a dangerous sport. Jackson has broken his leg, hyperextended his elbow and separated a few ribs.

Watching the melee is a major part of the fun for (some of) the audience - estimated at about 1,000 - on Friday night.

"I like to see 'em get hurt," chuckled Cliff Wilson of Lewiston.

"I like them all," Wilson said. "If they're men enough to get on those bulls, they're men." He'd try it himself if he ever got the chance, Wilson said. But the mechanical bull at Auburn's Club Texas has already taken him down once. "I hurt my back," he said, laughing again.

"It's awesome, how they kick and how they fall," said Ashley Cyr, 9, of Greene.

Nancy Bilodeau and Carol Snow, of Lewiston and Mechanic Falls, respectively, are there for the rush, too. "I love it, it's a blast," Snow said.

"I saw it at the Oxford Fair and I fell right in love with it," said Bilodeau. "It's a different kind of sport."