SPACEY? DISTRACTED? BORED? It's 7:30 on a Saturday night inside Madison Square Garden, and I'm finding it difficult to gauge the mood of the world's best rodeo clowns.

We're half an hour away from the rough-stock madness that is the second round of Professional Bull Riders' Built Ford Tough Series. It's the third-biggest show on the 32-stop tour, and a nearly sold-out crowd is already shuffling around with beers and nachos in hand.

Soon, chute gates will pop open, bull riders will tumble off, and the courageous clowns—seven-year PBR veteran Frank Newsom, eight-year man Shorty Gorham, and recent addition Darrell Diefenbach—will present their minimally cushioned asses to some very sharp horns. They'll shimmy and holler and slap bovine hides in hopes of drawing the bulls away from the fallen riders. This might work, or it might result in a primitive colonoscopy. Rodeo clowning is a madcap game of tag.

The clowns, however, look about as worried as sunbathers. Slouched in opposite corners of a bland dressing room, they answer my questions with brief, laconic statements.

"I've been injured more times than I can remember," Darrell offers. I point to random body parts. Back? Twisted, four pins, two plates. Forearms? Broken, about five times. Face? Scarred, from kissing a horn. And while these guys are physically fit, I can see that they're held together with combinations of scars and skin grafts, mechanical knee braces and inflatable ankle cuffs.

A passerby can't believe that tonight's event, like all contests at the Garden, takes place on the fifth floor.

"Yeah," agrees Shorty. "Who ever rode an elevator to the dirt?"

I keep an eye out for red foam noses but see none. Having ascended from the podunk minors to the exalted ranks of the PBR, Frank, Shorty, and Darrell traded in their clown costumes long ago. They don't have to get knocked around in a barrel or pull the old exploding-pants gag. Their colleague Flint Rasmussen, an "entertainer" clown who wears a mike and makeup, handles all the comedy, so it's customary among PBR fans to give these clowns a more serious title: "bullfighters."

Whatever. The focus of their job remains the same. As Darrell puts it, "Our main objective is to be a better target than the rider."

Fifteen minutes before the house lights cut out, the guys are suited up: plastic chest protectors, padded shorts, baseball cleats for traction, and black cowboy hats.

"You wear a cup?" I ask Shorty.

"I tried a hard hat," he deadpans, "but it was just too small."

And that's when it hits me: The mood here is calm. These three are about to engage in a full-contact sport that pits bone and soft tissue against big, horned, uncastrated beasts, and they are genuinely relaxed.