ProRodeo Sports News - August 6, 2021

EQUIPMENT CHANGES

pushing really hard to be the best they can be, and I think Classic is the top product and has been for a long time. “I look for a rope with a lot of body and control to it and is the same all the time and lasts a long time and has consistency. Classic has been ahead of the game. You want to have confidence in the product you’re using. I like to prepare my ropes for the NFR that are semi-broke in. I use them once or twice on a steer before I get there. I also want to have some ropes that haven’t been uncoiled in case the weather goes up and down, where it is cold one day and hot the next.” Lowell and Paul Eaves teamed to win the 2020 PRCA Team Roping Header and Team Roping Heeler World Championships, respectively, using Classic Ropes. Eaves also won a world title heeling in 2018 with Smith. “My roping company (Classic), they are obviously coming out with different stuff and new stuff all the time,” Eaves said. “They are making it better and improving stuff. Classic came out with the first four strand, and that was a big deal, and probably 10 years ago they came out with the first five strand. I know they are making better and better products and material. I have used the same rope for 12 years. They don’t mess with what works.” About 20 years ago, team roping ropes were bigger with different diameters. “When team roping got faster, cattle were a little bit smaller with smaller horns,” Eaves said. “They kind of shrunk everything down. I would say the ropes have gotten a little bit lighter, but not a huge change in the last 10 years.” Graves, who qualified with Egusquiza for the 2020 NFR, has been aware of how the landscape of team roping ropes have changed. “When ropes were started until now it is unbelievable the technology they have come up with,”

said Graves, who joined the PRCA in 2003. “Now they have the core that goes through the middle and it’s four strands. It’s amazing that they are always coming up with something new to try or to use that makes it that much better – from gripping the saddle horn, to the way it feels, the stiffness of it, the texture of it. They have whatever ropes you would prefer now, and back in the day you only had one or two options. When I started, I had a three- strand rope that was heavier, and it was just not as smooth feeling. I use Classic, and I like the way it feels and the consistency of it. Most of them are the same which is really important. I would say I get 10 to 12 runs out of a rope.” The team roping record of 3.3 seconds was first set by Masters and Corkill in Round 9 of the 2009 NFR at theThomas &Mack Center in Las Vegas. “I can’t imagine 3.3, that’s phenomenal,” Berg said. “When Chad Masters set the 3.3, he was using the Xplosion Cactus Rope. To go faster than 3.3 is going to happen, it’s amazing.” Eaves believes a 3.2-second run is inevitable. “Everything has to happen just right for that to happen, but you’re talking a tenth of a second,” Eaves said. “I definitely see that happening. I don’t know how much faster you can get, but I see that happening. The challenge of breaking that record is what makes it fun. You want to see how good you are against the best guys going.” Graves said modern ropes are only part of the equation for faster times. “I think technology has changed everything,” he said. “You have clinics and online videos you can watch and the Heel-O-Matics. There are so many more options of ways to get better. I think that now is really coming into play. I’m sure 3.3 seconds will be beat. All records are made to be broken.” RECORD MADE TO BE BROKEN

Alaina Stangle photo Team roping heeler Paul Eaves, left, and Colby Lovell compete during the 2020 Wrangler National Finals Rodeo at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas. Eaves and Lovell won their respective world championships using Classic ropes.

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best rope in the world,” Berg said. “Then, the four strand non-core came and you could make it absolutely perfect. But a weather change would make it a little wobbly. You put a core in there and it takes the wobble out and you have a pure swing, and it made it so much easier. If you watch PRCA roping this year and think how in the world did these guys ever get here, I say the No. 1 reason is the rope technology is so amazing. It helps the cowboys tremendously.” Brazile agreed. “It is hard to explain but can be felt easily,” Brazile said. “They can still have weight without having to have a big diameter. The way they used to make a rope heavier was they made it fatter, and that’s not the case anymore. There are a lot of other factors that go into it and different waxing processes. There is just so much, even different color ropes, the dyes have different weights. It’s just crazy. It (technology) is always pushing the envelope with these ropes. I think it’s a lot easier because the team roping industry and the amateur team roping industry is so big that we can exhaust a lot more efforts in research and developing new technology.” TO EACH HIS OWN (ROPE) Like a favorite golf club or baseball bat, ropers have their favorite types of ropes. “I’ve used Classic my whole life, and there are usually a lot of the guys at the NFR every year using Classic,” reigning World Champion Team Roping Header Colby Lovell said. “All the other rope companies are

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that was aging them,” Berg said. “Then the wax process was the first step in changing the industry, where you could actually make an individual rope any lay or any size you wanted and just have one or two instead of 600 feet. We were all on three strands forever, and then around 1998, Classic got a patent on a core and had it for 20 years. “What we did was develop a four-strand rope without a core. In 2004, it was the Hypnotic, that was our first four strand without a core. Tee Woolman won the NFR average in 2005 with a Hypnotic, and he used the same rope all 10 rounds. In 2009, we signed Trevor (Brazile) and developed a rope called Xplosion, a four-strand non-core and it had 30 percent poly in it. It went straight to the top and led us to our best year ever. Then finally in 2016, the patent ran out for Classic, and we developed a core. We’ve had three strand, four strand non-core and four strand core. What the core does is it cuts about 80 percent of the stretch out.” Berg said Cactus Ropes makes about 200,000 to 240,000 ropes a year. “In the rope industry, you’re about 96% team ropes and 4% calf ropes, because calf ropes last so long,” Berg said. “The technology behind the ropes today we literally learned more last year than we had known in the previous 29 years. We’re lucky because we get to compare non-core and core, and it has really been beneficial for us. There’s always a material out there that could take your rope to the next level.” Berg has seen first-hand the progression. “When you had the perfect three strand, you thought you had the

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ProRodeo Sports News 8/6/2021

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