For Daylon Swearingen, eight seconds is the difference between success and failure.

"This is a sport where there’s no whistle stopping it," he said. "Once that gate opens, it’s going to play out however God wants it to."

That’s the difference between getting paid or going home with nothing.

"You do got to be tough. You do got to be an animal, and you got to go out there and fight every single time," said Swearingen, a professional bull rider.

The 24-year-old upstate New York native has been competing with the PBR for the last six seasons.

"Just grew up every weekend pretty much at a rodeo, and that’s kind of how I got my start," he said.

Swearingen got his start in the chute in Livingston County, where his parents, grandfather, and uncles were involved with the sport. When he turned 18, he went to college in Texas and started competing professionally.

"There’s definitely a big rodeo community in the northeast, and definitely in upstate New York," Swearingen said.

He calls it a very humbling sport - going from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows in eight seconds. Swearingen knows first hand- from battling hip and shoulder injuries, and even getting his head stepped on by a bull, to being crowned the PBR World Champion in 2022. Swearingen is the first-ever rider from New York to do it.

"That’s my dream and that’s my goal, and that’s what I’ve been working my whole life to be is a world champ, and now we just got to do it again," he said.

Swearingen is now looking to use his recent visit to the MVP Arena in Albany, the closest stop to home, to catapult himself to the top once again. PBR’s rising star is still hungry for more and living the dream eight seconds at a time.