FOUR-PAGE PULLOUT
S PORTS
A5
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THE BULLETIN • WEDNESDAY, APRIL 13, 2022
LOCAL
MOUNTAIN
BIKING
Bone Crusher race
is set for Madras
The Bone Crusher XCO
mountain bike race is set
for the Madras East Hills
Trails on April 23-24.
The event has ex-
panded to two days of
racing in a World Cup-
style format with short
track on Day 1, and an
XCO race on Day 2.
XCO (cross-country
Olympic) is a race format
that substitutes one mas-
sive lap for quick, specta-
tor- and ability-friendly
laps that total 1½ hours
of racing. The Madras
East Hills Trails are fast,
flowy and packed with
jumps, berms and wood
features. The course is do-
able for juniors and nov-
ices, and spectators are
encouraged.
Short-track racing is
scheduled for April 23, set
for a 1-mile course that
features 50% singletrack
and 50% fire roads. The
race is just 20 minutes
long, and will favor racers
who are willing to attack
each lap and push the
pace at every turn.
The XCO course for April
24 follows a lap format,
and is 5.8 miles for Cat-
egory 1/2 racers and 4.7
miles for Category 3 racers.
For more information
or to register, visit www.
bonecrusherxco.com.
Located just east of
Madras near Juniper Hill
Park, the Madras East Hills
trail system includes 14
miles of mountain biking
trails and 6 miles of horse-
back-riding trails.
bendbulletin.com/sports
GOLF COMMENTARY
A sign
of parity
Charlie Riedel/AP
Scottie Scheffler celebrates after winning the 86th Masters Sunday in Augusta, Georgia.
Amazing as what Scottie Scheffler has done, it’s too soon to think of him as golf’s next dominant player
BY DOUG FERGUSON
AP Golf Writer
AUGUSTA, Ga. — Start with Scottie
Scheffler winning four times in two
months. Now consider the money.
His PGA Tour earnings in his past six tourna-
ments — dating to his first victory in the Phoenix
Open on Feb. 13 — come to $8,872,200.
With consideration to purse increases and the
Tour Championship no longer offering official
prize money, Scheffler has made more in two
months than what would have won the PGA Tour
money title in four of the past eight seasons.
Golf has not seen a stretch this torrid since Ja-
son Day rattled off four wins in six starts, includ-
ing the PGA Championship, in the summer of
2015.
And he was not even the best player that year:
Jordan Spieth’s five wins that year included two
majors and the FedEx Cup.
See Scheffler / A7
— Bulletin staff report
LOCAL
MULTISPORT
MOTOR SPORTS | NASCAR CUP SERIES
NBA
Trail Blazers looking ahead to a
bright future after a dismal season
PPP entry fees
increase April 19
The 44th edition of the
SELCO Pole Pedal Paddle
multisport race is set for
May 14 on a course from
Mount Bachelor to Bend.
Entry fees increase on
April 19.
Before April 19, entry
fees range from $55 to
$85 per person, depend-
ing on race category.
Visit www.pppbend.
com to register and for
more information. Regis-
tration closes on May 11.
The PPP — which in-
cludes teams, pairs and
individuals racing in al-
pine skiing, nordic skiing,
road cycling, paddling
and running on a course
from Mt. Bachelor ski area
to Bend — was canceled
the past two years due to
the pandemic.
The PPP stages include
an alpine ski down an
intermediate run at Mt.
Bachelor ski area, an 8-ki-
lometer nordic ski, a 22-
mile bike ride from Bach-
elor to Bend, a 5-mile
run along the Deschutes
River, a 1.5-mile paddle
on the river and a finish-
ing “sprint” of 1 mile.
The new finish area
for the PPP will be in the
west event grass just
south of the Hayden
Homes Amphitheater
(where the finish was pre-
viously staged), near the
Hampton Inn. The finish
area was moved away
from the amphitheater
due to construction.
The PPP is the big-
gest fundraiser for the
Bend-based Mt. Bachelor
Sports Education Foun-
dation, a nonprofit that
serves more than 600
youth athletes in com-
petitive alpine and nor-
dic skiing, freeride skiing,
freeride snowboarding
and cycling.
For more information,
contact race organizer
Molly Cogswell-Kelley at
molly@mbsef.org or 541-
388-0002.
— Bulletin staff report
BY AARON FENTRESS
The Oregonian
James H. Wallace/Richmond Times-Dispatch via AP
Ty Gibbs celebrates in victory lane after winning a NASCAR Xfinity Se-
ries race April 2 in Richmond, Virginia.
Logano watches Ty Gibbs scrap
with veteran bemusement
BY JENNA FRYER
AP Auto Racing Writer
Joey Logano has had his
share of conflict during a ca-
reer that began with his ap-
pointment as “Sliced Bread”
upon arrival.
He was 18 and overhyped,
evidenced by a nickname that
likened him to the “greatest
thing since … sliced bread.”
Eager to prove himself and
determined not to be pushed
around, Logano scrapped with
just about all of NASCAR’s
biggest stars.
He’s had a beef with Kevin
Harvick, as well as former
Joe Gibbs Racing teammates
Denny Hamlin and Kyle
Busch. Tony Stewart, the guy
he replaced at Gibbs, called
Logano “nothing but a little
rich kid” during their spat,
and Matt Kenseth was sus-
pended two races for delib-
erately knocking Logano out
of championship-conten-
tion during their contentious
flare-up.
And so it is with some
bemusement that Logano
watches from afar as Ty Gibbs,
the 19-year-old heir appar-
ent at the Gibbs organization,
is struggling to find his own
footing with three incidents
in the past six Xfinity Series
races.
“I have a lot more grace for
seeing that stuff after going
through it myself,” Logano
said. “Do I agree with the way
it went down? No, I don’t.
Have I done that type of thing
before? Yeah, I have. Am I
proud of it? No, not at all. But
I learned from it at least.”
Ty Gibbs this year hasn’t
helped his bid to overcome the
perception he’s only advanced
to NASCAR’s second-tier
Xfinity Series because his
grandfather owns the team.
Gibbs has the best car on track
each week and it shows — he
has three wins through eight
races, is ranked second in the
standings and has led nearly a
quarter of the laps completed
to date — but he’s aggressive
and it exploded last weekend
at Martinsville Speedway.
See NASCAR / A7
Portland Trail Blazers in-
terim general manager Joe
Cronin decided about four
months ago that the best
course of action for the fran-
chise was to make moves and
decisions that would create
flexibility and garner a high
draft pick to retool the roster
around superstar Damian
Lillard.
That meant losing. A lot.
And badly.
It was NBA tanking at its
finest.
But with the 16th worst
season now in the rearview
mirror, Cronin and coach
Chauncey Billups are on the
clock to deliver fans a win-
ning product. They must
prove that trading away fran-
chise cornerstone C.J. McCo-
llum and enduring blowout
losses on a nearly nightly ba-
sis for six weeks was worth
the suffering for fans, many
of whom paid top dollar for
an NBA-level product.
On Monday, both men
faced reporters at the team’s
exit interviews to discuss the
end of a season that saw the
Blazers (27-55) finish with
the sixth-worst record in the
NBA. And as they broached
the future, they did so with
an air of confidence that a
season of misery could lead
to something better in the
future.
“I feel good about it,” Bil-
lups said. “I think that we
have an opportunity that I
don’t think that this organi-
zation has ever had. To be
able to step it back just this
one season and be able to get
pretty good, pretty fast.”
The NBA has evolved into
a league that occasionally re-
wards losing. Bad teams net
higher draft picks, provid-
ing a chance for struggling
franchises to score a future
All-Star. The Blazers chased
Sean Meagher/The Oregonian
The Portland Trail Blazers are hoping to retool their roster around
star Damian Lillard.
that path in December, after
Lillard was sidelined with
a severe abdominal injury
and McCollum suffered a
collapsed lung, sending the
team to a 2-11 record with no
chance to contend.
By the Feb. 10 trade dead-
line, McCollum, Norman
Powell and Robert Coving-
ton were gone, Lillard had
undergone surgery and was
shut down for the season,
and the Blazers had decided
that losing would be more
beneficial than fighting for a
berth into the play-in round.
Although this strategy
might ultimately pay off, it
doesn’t mean Cronin always
felt at ease with the path he
chose.
“I still feel uncomfortable
about it,” he said. “We have
a really competitive group.
We didn’t want to lose ball-
games. Sometimes it’s nec-
essary. Sometimes you have
to go with your youth move-
ment. … This, theoretically is
a really quick step backward.
We’re not looking at two,
three, four years of this. So,
that makes it easier. But as far
as the discomfort, the will-
ingness to accept losing, that
was really hard for us and
continues to be.”
The path to simply becom-
ing competitive again won’t
require much. After all, most
of the crew that finished the
season 2-21 will not be in the
regular rotation next season.
Lillard is on the road to a
full recovery and has already
spoken about how much bet-
ter his body feels after sitting
out the last three months of
the season. Josh Hart, Justise
Winslow and Nassir Little
established themselves as le-
gitimate rotation pieces. Plus,
Anfernee Simons and Jusuf
Nurkic, at their best, had the
Blazers winning games with-
out Lillard before the All-Star
break.
While Nurkic and Simons
are not under contract for
next season, the Blazers have
prioritized re-signing both.
“He is the type of player
that we definitely want to
build around,” Cronin said of
Nurkic, who will be an unre-
stricted free agent.
Simons will become a re-
stricted free agent, and al-
though Cronin said he ex-
pects the guard to receive
offers from other teams, the
Blazers plan to be proactive
in locking him in with a long-
term extension.
See Blazers / A6