Wednesday Observations by Myron Angstman

Myron's Analysis

Yesterday’s report mentioned  the importance of  watching speeds into Takotna in handicapping the rest  of the Iditarod.   The teams streamed into that  location in a bunch last night, and the  information available tells us  a lot about  what to expect from here on out.

The first team  coming in will not be the first to leave. Aliy Zirkle  started earlier than some of the other front runners, so she and everyone else  will watch as Mitch Seavey heads for Ophir early tomorrow.  He will be free to leave a few minutes ahead of Zirkle, and then  Dallas Seavey is scheduled to leave  third.   There are a bunch of other teams  ready to follow that group a bit later, and that group includes John Baker.

The speeds coming into Takotna reveal that Dallas Seavey was noticeably faster than anyone else. He made up a bunch of time from Nikolai.    Other speedy teams included  Mitch Seavey,  Jeff King, Ray Redington, Sonny Lindner, Gary Willomitzer,  Michele Phillips, Pete Kaiser and Jake Berkowitz. Kaiser had the second fastest time from McGrath to Takotna.  These speeds are important but do not tell the whole story.  Baker is well known for traveling a bit slower  than some of the other top teams. Zirkle also has that trait.  In a race like the Iditarod,  Baker’s method of neutralizing the speed of his opponents is to make longer runs,  sometimes forcing  the faster  teams to run longer than planned and possibly slowing them down in the process.  With so many speedy teams  bunched at Takotna,  that strategy will surely get a test in upcoming days.

No one’s strategy can cover all possible situations. Weather and trail conditions are always a factor, and they can foil either the front runners or those who hang back a bit.  The front runners can burn up a lot of energy building a lead only to encounter conditions that slow them down or even  force them to wait at some location.  On the other hand,  those a bit behind can encounter  conditions  that cut them off from the lead pack.   Barring such problems,  it appears the top six in today’s standings are in the best position to challenge for the top spot in this year’s race,  (Zirkle, two Seaveys, Baker, Redington and King.)   Teams  behind that group would have to make a dramatic move somewhere to move into the top group.  They are disadvantaged by the fact there are so many teams ahead of them,  all with a lot of race experience and decent speed.

As this note is being written, Martin and Rohn Buser  raced through Takotna, but don’t be confused by that information. They both still have to take their mandatory 24 hour break on up the trail, so their lead in the race is not really a  lead.  In fact, both are running quite a ways off the pace.


Myron Angstman, lawyer, pilot, and dog musher, lives in Bethel, Alaska. Read more about dogs, law suits and rural Alaska gossip by checking http://www.myronangstman.com/

Day 3 with Sam Towarak

Sam's Analysis

Each year, a Spirit Award is given by Pen Air for the first musher to McGrath. Kudos to Danny Seybert and the entire Pen Air crew for promoting the Spirit of the Iditarod.

The mushers are a few miles from McGrath and moving towards their 24 hour. If we were to stop the Iditarod right now and let everyone take their 24, there would be some surprises. We wondered in our last blog about the changing of the Guard with the younger mushers moving up. While old timers and long time followers of the race can be proud of the veterans that occupy the top positions. Why, even Rick Swenson is currently in eleventh place out of Nikolai with Dee Dee Jonrowe in twelfth place with Sonny Lindner leaving in the fifteenth position. This assures the public that these perennial favorite mushers are still contenders and should always be considered as serious competitors.

There are over 20 teams on the 48 mile trail heading for McGrath from Nikolai with more poised to move forward at any moment. This will crowd the 24 hour favorite spot, Takotna. Look to see some mushers moving up to Ophir to take their 24 just to maintain some quiet rest time for themselves and their dogs. Than the mushers in the thirtys to be happy with their 24 in McGrath.

The twenty four hour has another twist that can affect the race and that is the time adjustment. Remember that all mushers left in 2 minute intervals from Willow so the first musher has a jump on the other competitors so the equalization time comes at the 24. Musher Ray Redington Jr who left in second position (Number 1 goes to the Honorary musher) will have to spend 2 hrs and 12 minutes longer for a total of 26 hours and 12 minutes. The last musher, Ryan Redington will only spend 24 hours as he has no extra minutes to spend. This levels the playing field for the rest of the Race. Ryan can tell Ray Jr that he gained over 2 hours without even lifting a finger. Two hours translated into miles can change the playing field. Look to see the time adjustment on the rest of the field and it could actually change some positions in the race.

Snow continues to dominate the race. It has caused the dogs to expend more as well as lose the trail. A couple of the lead mushers took a dead end and had to turn around. The snow is dry and powdery and can put the leaders in a lot of stress just trying to stay on the trail. John Baker in an interview in Nikolai said his team faced the challenges and he has never been so proud of his team. Mushers are dropping very few dogs and that is the plus of an abundance of snow. Believe it or not, the challenges of the snow will be even more when the mushers head to Cripple and Ruby. You will find a lot of weary mushers who probably are yelling gee and haw in their sleep when they reach the Yukon.

The 24 hour break comes at a good time for my blogging, I'll be back on Thursday evening.


Sam Towarak, retired school teacher, dog musher, and sports commentator, lives in Unalakleet, Alaska. 

Good Old Days in McGrath by Myron Angstman

Myron's Analysis

As the lead  teams pass through McGrath,  Iditarod race history becomes an important topic. Recent race followers  may have a hard time imagining the early years of the race when McGrath  was the focal point of the first half of the race, with hundreds of race fans  crowding  in, and racers spending  long hours stopped in the  community.   The focus of those early years at McGrath was the famous local business known as McGuires Tavern.

There was an early Iditarod  special on TV, narrated by some British  dude who traveled the trail by helicopter and  reported on what he saw.  He described  McGuires as “one of the world’s greatest pubs” and it probably seemed that way  after a few days on the trail without  a drink.  In fact, McGuires was a meeting spot for rural Alaska, and during the Iditarod crowds  packed the place, for a chance to buy a beer, or two, for the mushers who stopped for a little break.  It is a  commonly  known fact that at least two Yukon River  racers probably lost the Iditarod by staying too long at Mcgrath, and most of that time was spent at McGuires.  By too long I mean a day or so.

I actually spent a little time at McGuires,  but it was only to gather material for this blog.  I feel the need to report on those events.  One time I spent an evening  at McGuires with a  race  veterinarian,  who was not supposed to drink  because of an ultimatum from his wife.  He convinced me at about 2 am to call her from the bar pay phone to tell her he was  on duty, working hard late at night. It didn’t work. The bar noise was  obvious. He was divorced soon after.

Another time I was called at 4 am for legal help. The caller said he had been assaulted  during the  race at McGuires and wanted to know if he could sue the assailant. I was a little groggy and  decided to ask a few questions.  “Where are you calling from” I asked.  “I’m on the floor under the phone at McGuires”. He explained that is where he landed after the assault, and he had had his friend dial me up immediately.   By morning he forgot he had called.

Then there was Freight Train, a local legend.  Freight  Train was a cat skinner in the local gold mines, who liked to drink at McGuires. One time during a race he copied the old  TV stunt of smashing  a beer can into his face, except he used a glass. It broke, so did he, and he left with  a huge gash in his face.  He apparently went to the local health aide for stitches and returned  in an hour to order another drink. He died  a few years later as a fairly young man, and his obituary  stated he died of too much fun, and most of it was at McGuires.

One other famous story involved a western Alaska pilot who stopped for a few beers at McGuires on his way to Anchorage. The bar is located right on the airport parking ramp.  He left the bar drunk, and flew west instead of east. When  the troopers found him a few days later on the bank of the Innoko River,   his first words were “What took you so long”  It didn’t take very long at all to revoke his flying permit.

McGrath held its own race  called the Mail Trail 202 for many years and McGuires was the race headquarters.   It was quite the spot.  All  that is in the past.  Tonight, there is likely a small group there, but most nights visiting McGuires is like going to a haunted house.  You sense the presence of the old timers, but they aren’t  there.  Few mushers stop for more than five minutes in McGrath, and for that reason the race fans that do venture along the trail tend to congregate in Takotna where more many mushers take 24 hours.

I had a beer at McGuires when I raced in 1979, and  one more in Takotna when that bar was still open. That was a different Iditarod.  It is likely no racer will visit McGuires this year, and it might not even be allowed.  But a little flavor of the race has been lost by the  calculated way in which it is run today.  The good old days weren’t always that good,   but when it comes to the Iditarod, they really were.


Myron Angstman, lawyer, pilot, and dog musher, lives in Bethel, Alaska. Read more about dogs, law suits and rural Alaska gossip by checking http://www.myronangstman.com/

Leaders into Nikolai by Myron Angstman

Myron's Analysis

Rarely does an  eventual  Iditarod winner arrive  more than a  few hours after the first team into Nikolai.  The first Native village on the trail,   Nikolai  sits at the end of  a long  run through the Alaska Range, and  usually provides the first real indication of how teams are stacking up. 

With Aliy Zirkle arriving there first, there  is little question that  she is a serious contender to win,  especially considering  that same team was a very close second  in the 2012   Yukon Quest.   

But long time race watchers like myself also know that  the next run is frequently the one that  sorts out some of the the  weaker teams.  That’s because  the rest at Nikolai is frequently sliced a little thin because a number of teams are planning to rest 24 hours at Takotna after the next run of about 70 miles.  Their  thinking goes, well if  I am taking a long rest soon,  lets  make sure the dogs are ready to take advantage of  it.  

Watch the  running times carefully into McGrath, and then even closer into  Takotna.  That last 20 mile run is revealing. Many of the best  racers will tell you starting out speed is not the key to winning, it’s the speed at the end of a run.   Many teams when rested develop a fair amount of speed that lasts for a while, but winning teams often have a slower starting speed that can be sustained longer.   John Baker has that kind of team.  

By checking  the traveling speed of a team coming into Takotna,  after a 70 mile run from Nikolai, you can often have a glimpse of which team will be leading  further down the trail.    That assumes of course that the  teams you are checking all are within a certain distance from the front of the pack already.   Teams too far back, especially this year with so many teams  bunched at the front, are  basically out of luck.

Learning this kind of information  is a snap these days. With GPS trackers, numerous on the trail bloggers and  countless websites,  anyone can do their homework and make a decent prediction about what might transpire.

It’s a far cry from very recent times when fans like myself had to go to great lengths to get good information.  As late as the early  1990’s I used to call  the Iditarod  race  line six or eight times a day to obtain checkpoint times.  To assure a prompt and  informed response, I would often suggest I was a reporter from the New York Times. That usually  got me right to the source.  Even that amount  of information  far surpassed what was  available when I ran the race in 1979.  For middle of the pack racers such as me, the reports  were sometimes two days old on the  radio reports.  


Myron Angstman, lawyer, pilot, and dog musher, lives in Bethel, Alaska. Read more about dogs, law suits and rural Alaska gossip by checking www.myronangstman.com

Day 2 with Sam Towarak

Sam's Analysis

Each day in a rural Alaska face book, a lady runs a trivia question on the Iditarod, now that’s the Spirit.

Day 2 of the Iditarod, and the mushers are moving. Yesterday, we thought the mushers never go a 100 miles and I was busy doing the math. I know there was a rest period included in these jaunts so it seems it was not a steady run without a little rest. As I write this blog, the mushers are entering Rohn and John Baker is in that top group approaching Rohn.

When the lead mushers arrived in Rainy Pass today, a “gentle snow” started falling on them and it got thicker as the other mushers checked into Rainy. Everyone was complimenting the trail committee for the well groomed trail, and the speed of travel is indicative of this. I completely missed the arrival time into Rohn and am scratching my head on that one, but it does indicate a longer rest was taken not all at once but packed into the last three checkpoints. What happens in Rohn will be the one item to watch with regards to rest time, and there is going to be some eye staring, restless naps, when and who makes the first move to Nikolai, and the abundance of dog teams congregating in Rohn. This will make any contender uneasy to see such a large field at this stage of the race.

Word has it that Ramey Smyth may have fell asleep than fell off his sled and lost his team which cost him some time. His team was secured by Rohn Buser. Ramey may have had some help from Jeff King to reach Ramey’s team which is allowed in the race. We hope that this is just an embarrassment and has no bearing on Ramey’s chances to win the race. We stress that the Iditarod is now a game of inches and those “inches” take a more significant effect on chances to win the race.

I have not heard from anyone on the toll the snow falling at Rainy has on any of the mushers. Light snow falling still necessitates more energy consumption by the dog teams which means more time tending to the dogs’ feeding. It was encouraging to see Dee Dee Jonrowe come into Rainy Pass with her dogs still barking. I am amazed at the quality of dog running the Iditarod today. This is a good time to mention the vet check and screening that was done in Anchorage to make sure the dogs are fit to run the race. More advances have been made by the Iditarod Race with regard to dog endurance that any other endurance dog sport, and these advances have been used in the rest of the dog world. Now people know one of the reasons Vets follow the race as it is a nice laboratory to learn of all these advances being applied in the field.

Tonight, we follow the mushers as they set up for the run to Nikolai. There will be a short break from abundance of snow but not for long as deep snow is still the mantra on the approach to the 24 hour. If we look at the top 20 going into the 24 hour, will we notice a changing of the guard with the younger mushers occupying most of the slots? Take note of that, and make your own judgement. The other item to look for is the number of mushers congregated going into the 24 hour, meaning separation of the top ten teams by only 2 hours and the top 20 by 4-5 hours. I noticed this trend in the mid distance races and it could still be happening in the early part of the race.

We can expect more separation on the runs from Takotna to Ruby as has traditionally happened. Also by Galena, we can almost define a contending field. As mentioned before, this is a race done in segments but with common traits on strategy. We have not seen a team “stove up” in the modern Iditarod- where the dogs just refuse to continue running. This has happened in early Iditarods but not in the modern era. When you listen to interviews at Ruby, you will hear that mushers want to have their dogs rest so they can maintain speeds. This is why people are amazed when they see the leaders push their teams to the extreme without any “stoving “ happening. This is another example of the advances the Iditarod dog has made with regard to long distance racing.

Tonight, we see our last day of good action until we rest up for the 24 hour. We want to know the moves each team makes and whether it affects them for the run to Ruby.


Sam Towarak, retired school teacher, dog musher, and sports commentator, lives in Unalakleet, Alaska. 

Up the Trail Together

During the first two decades of the Iditarod Sled Dog Race people said it could never be a spectator sport. Then along came social media. Today, following the race is not only possible from any place in the world; it can also be extremely exciting with a multitude of sites presenting a variety of perspectives. Each one helps spectators who cannot actually be there in person, still they can 'be out on the trail'.

John Baker at Willow re-start

Seeing the start in person is special, exhilarating, and obviously a must for race fans. Those who were at the Anchorage start and Willow re-start may feel like the Iditarod excitement is over but it’s only just begun! The good news is that getting out to each checkpoint is not required if you want to ‘follow’ the race. It is very possible to be on top of what’s happening out on the trail virtually.

We encourage you to do your own searches but to get started here is a list with just a few of the sites to visit.

First, go to the Iditarod Sled Dog Race website at http://iditarod.com/ for the official race updates, both written and video stories, with play-by-play commentary at each checkpoint along the trail. While visiting the Iditarod website check out each musher’s bio and visit the link they include for their fans to follow. Many have some sort of race update source.

Follow with Alaska's on-line news site, Alaska Dispatch, for on-the-spot Team and Trail stories by a team of knowledgeable race analysts including Iditarod veteran Zack Steer at: http://www.alaskadispatch.com/section/iditarod.

Ben Matheson and Laureli
Kinneen with KNOM Radio

Commentators from Nome, Laureli Kinneen and Ben Matheson, are exceptional at getting in-depth interviews for KNOM Radio at http://onthetrail.knom.org/

 Blogs to check out include the Anchorage Daily Newspaper at http://www.adn.com/ with Kyle Hopkins for the Iditarod Live Sled Blog; and the Iditablog with Josh and Nate Sobie at http://iditablog.com/

There are so many more more sites and each one a validation that there is no doubt the Iditarod is a spectator sport! And Team Baker is proud to be in the midst of it all – both real-life and virtually.

Team Baker has a network of volunteers comprised of contributing photographers, writers, and race analysts who are pooling their talents to provide information, updates, and analysis - not just about Team Baker but about the race in general. We have a few sites intended to provide a space for all race supporters, and especially the communities that host a checkpoint along the Trail, who want to be connected to each other. 

We want to share our enthusiasm for this amazing race with everyone and have created the following: A website to provide information about John Baker, the dogs, and their Arctic home. Go to http://www.teamjohnbaker.com/.  A Facebook page to provide quick bits of info plus photos and video. Go to: http://www.facebook.com/ and follow John Baker Iditarod Update. We are also tweeting on Twitter with notes about what is happening. Go to: https://twitter.com/ and sign up to follow John Baker @ teamjohnbaker. Finally we are Blogging with stories and insights providing more detail, color and in-depth race analysis at this site http://teamjohnbaker.blogspot.com/.

If you’ve caught the Iditarod fever we’re thrilled to share the journey all along the trail right up to the finish in Nome with you. We invite everyone to contribute photographs, share stories, and give race insights. Let’s enjoy the ride up the trail together!

One final note about the importantance of spectators is perhaps best described by John Baker who reminded us that "there would be no race without all the people, volunteers and fans, who support the Iditarod." Check out the video clip taken at the Iditarod banquet to hear his comments at:  http://youtu.be/_Mgy6ZpiaDA

Fun Iditarod-Ride



Team Baker walks to the start line
in downtown Anchorage


The ceremonial start of the Iditarod Sled Dog Race is crazy fun with hundreds of dogs and thousands of people. On this one day each year there is a designated trail from downtown Anchorage to the BLM Campbell Creek Science Center which is approximately 8-miles. Each dog team has an individual lucky enough to win a bid for a thrilling ride in the sled. 



Crawford, Simeon, and Laura

at the Anchorage start



This year John had Simeon Patkotak, Sr. from Barrow as the Idita-rider in his sled. Simeon's enthusiastic smile began before getting in the basket. During the ride he waved to the crowds of people cheering along every inch of the trail. And Simeon was still smiling long after the ride ended. 

Simeon Patkotak, Sr. with John and
Crawford Patkotak in second sled


It was truly an honor for John to have Simeon with him. These days there are very few sled dogs in Patkotak’s hometown and the opportunity for him to travel with dogs is reminder of a time when dogs were an integral part of life for the people of the Arctic.

When Baker and the Patkotak family visited later, the conversation about the brief ride rekindled memories and produced new stories. 

Check out the video of the ceremonial start at:

http://youtu.be/EW7dKyjxwgM 

Read more at: http://iditarod.com/part-ii-the-ceremonial-start-by-joe-runyan/