Rodeo has enjoyed a long ride in New Jersey : Cowtown Rodeo is the oldest such event in U.S., drawing thousands who seek a taste of the West.

At 6:30 p.m., a line of vehicles and horse trailers was backed up on Route 40 waiting to pull into the Cowtown Rodeo, but nobody was blowing a horn or showing impatience to get ahead.

The smell of horses, hay and car exhaust fumes hung in the air. Nearby, stands set up by local farmers were selling corn, tomatoes and cantaloupes. A few horses whinnied, a bull groaned.

The oldest weekly rodeo in the nation, the Cowtown Rodeo, is only about an hour’s drive south of Philadelphia and two hours southwest of New York City. In about an hour, far from the arroyos and cactus of the West, the night’s events would begin: bareback riding, calf roping, steer wrestling, and bull riding.

“It’s kind of ironic that here we are in New Jersey and we’re older than any of (the rodeos) out there,” said Betsy Harris, the wife of the rodeo’s owner and producer, Grant Harris.

The Cowtown Rodeo originated during the Depression as a novelty to attract spectators to the Salem County Fair. Except for a few years during World War II, it has been running ever since and was even televised nationally during the late 1950s.

The entrance fee for the only rodeo in New Jersey is $8 for adults, $4 for children. But for that, residents of this industrial Northeastern state get something like a taste of Texas, Montana or California.

About 4,000 people pack this arena each Saturday night from late May to the end of September. They come dressed for the event. Most of the men wear jeans and sport white or black cowboy hats on short-cropped hair; the women are outfitted mostly in blue jeans tucked into Western boots.

The Professional Rodeo Cowboys Assn. has 10,000 members who crisscross the United States and Canada to participate in about 800 rodeos. There are 12 rodeo circuits, and the Cowtown Rodeo belongs to the First Frontier circuit--an area that ranges from Maine to Virginia.

About 7:15 p.m. on a recent Saturday, the floodlights were turned on and a band called “Dave and the Wranglers” began to twang country-and-western songs. “That’ll be three dollars,” said a man hawking programs to a nattily dressed woman waiting in one of two lines to get into the arena. “Thank you, ma’am.”

Many spectators brought lawn chairs or beach chairs so that they wouldn’t have to sit on the hard bleacher seats ringing the football-stadium-sized arena. A few private box seats are reserved for wealthy patrons and companies.

Sitting in the far bleachers, Jim and Joyce Via of Pequea, Pa., said they had gone to rodeos in Nevada and Arizona but drove for an hour to bring their three grandchildren here.

Some in the crowd were still getting peanuts, hot pretzels with mustard, hot dogs and soft drinks when the show began at dusk.

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Cowtown Rodeo,” the announcer said. “Why, let your hair down and let’s hoot and holler and have a good time!”

Moments later, a flag parade made up of about 100 horses and riders entered the arena to kick off the rodeo.

Mike Via, 9, said he wasn’t much impressed by the procession, but he changed his mind quickly when the first bareback rider shot out of the narrow chutes.

“Boy, this is awesome!” he said, peering through the chain-link fence to watch the flailing cowboy. In no time at all, the cowboy’s hat had fallen into the dirt. One of his hands rose in the air, flying about wildly like a flag; the other gripped the reins as he tried to hold onto the bucking bronco. Soon he was parallel to the horse’s back, being jolted to and fro.

But he hung on. After the buzzer on the eight-second timer sounded, the cowboy jumped off the bronco and onto the horse of a pickup man.

“It’s rough stuff,” said Grant Harris, 39, the rodeo’s producer. “It’s very similar to pro football players. You peak in your mid-20s and by the mid-30s, it’s just about over.”

Harris is a veteran rider of saddle broncs and bulls. His grandfather started the Cowtown Rodeo, and his father turned it over to him in 1978.

It costs about $50 to enter each event, and each one poses a different challenge. In calf roping, for instance, the cowboy must lasso the calf, jump from his horse and tie the calf’s two hind legs and one foreleg together in less than 25 seconds.

The average winnings total about $10,000 dollars a season, while a national champion can net about $125,000.

As the Cowtown Rodeo’s season neared its end, Jimmy Grasso, a 37-year-old bronc rider from Franklinville, N.J., was in first place and hoping to win the First Frontier circuit’s saddle bronc riding championship this year.

“It all depends on how bad you want it,” he said, “And nobody wants it as bad as me this year.”