Final Report for the Night

Some analysts just don’t  know much.   Aily Zirkle is now in the lead near Safety.  Best info is that a ground blizzard  stopped Jeff King, and he has been stalled at the same place for about an hour.  Its around  25 miles to Nome, and its  a dog race.

**UPDATE BAD WEATHER NEAR SAFETY**

Bad weather  near Safety might  cause  a shake-up in  the finish.    Jeff King has stopped for a period of time near   Safety, likely because of bad winds and blowing snow.  This reporting mechanism can’t possibly keep you correctly updated, but watch Facebook for more  details.

Record Breaking and Weather Related Drama Mid Pack

Much of  the suspense surrounding the  Iditarod finish has been eliminated with  the mandatory 8 hour layover in White Mountain.  I was on the  race board when the rule was  discussed, and some mentioned  it would create an unofficial finish line at  that location and indeed it has.  Teams jockey for  position arriving at White Mountain, knowing well that after an eight hour rest, most good teams will have a strong run to Nome and  positions won’t change much.  Jeff King is rolling along toward his fifth victory, in record time.  The suspense of that win disappeared when  King pulled away from Zirkle leaving Koyuk.  All that’s left now is to collect his prize.

As a guy who also pulls for the underdog, it would be nice to see new people win the race.  That is not to detract from King’s win, it’s just a personal preference. Other fans  like to see champions win over and over.   I know King fairly well and he understands that everyone has their  favorite musher.  He also knows  that I respect his ability  to win five times.  One has to feel for Zirkle and her third straight second place finish.  One can always say wait for next year but things change.  A special dog grows older and  his replacement is not as special.   Any number of such problems could prevent  Zirkle  from having  a front running team in the  future.  Look at  Sonny Lindner.  He finished second so long ago I can’t remember the  year, and he will retire this year without  winning.

Aside from the finish there appears to be some weather related drama  back in the pack.  Winds have been clocked around 40 mph.  Long run times for  teams from Elim to White Mountain show that the  wind is creating  issues.  There are parts of the tail that are blow holes, and  Golovin Bay is one such place.  With glare ice, big winds make travel very difficult.   If there was  loose snow blowing as well it  would be  nearly impossible.  The trip from Shaktoolik  to Koyuk will not be much fun tonight, and  there are stretches   in the last 40 miles to Nome that are rough in the wind as well.  The wind is mostly a tail wind reportedly at that location, but still  not easy.

One of the worst parts of big wind on the coast is the mental part.  After the grueling  miles covered to get there, it  sort of one last insult to the racers.  I have hanging in my office an old photo on the  Safety to Nome stretch, showing myself and the dogs leaning into the wind, sled tilted, and dogs ears blowing  sideways.  Shouted encouragement from a few  hardy fans could barely be heard.  And that was after the wind died down that day.   I believe my exact quote was “where the hell is Nome?”

John Baker is in Elim, and apparently  he and others camped there can feel the wind cause they have stayed a long time.  Youngsters Pete Kaiser and Richie Diehl are buddies with Baker, and know him to be  a guy who trains in heavy winds.  If he is sitting tight, they probably figure it’s a good idea. Running as they are in the middle of the paying positions, there is not a great incentive to stumble off into such a blustery night.

Katherine Keith left  Shaktoolik  in the afternoon and appears to be only about 15  miles out of the checkpoint,  where there is a shelter cabin.  From this far away, my advice is to stay there.  The weather is not expected to improve into tomorrow.  Paige Drobny appears to be stopped about  15 miles ahead of her.    The current  weather  at Shaktoolik is -2 degrees,  with a  46  mph wind.  I  have raced in similar weather,  and I get a bad feeling when I type those words.

Iditarod officials have a good pulse on events  like this, and  it is likely  there will be efforts made  tomorrow morning to  check  on any teams not in checkpoints.  That doesn’t make the night any shorter  for the ones that are out there.

Finishing Positions Narrowed Down and Joe Redington Sr

The two team race from last night  is now down to mainly a one team race.  Unless unusual circumstances develop tonight  Jeff King will set a new record time and win his fifth  Iditarod.  He leads by about an hour, and has consistently had strong runs since  taking his late 24 hour  break at Ruby.  If past race history  is a guide, look for many teams to wait longer for their 24 hour break in the future. Even though King may have won this race  by taking his break anywhere, racers often go with the  a successful race plan employed by a champion the following year.

 

Aily Zirkle  seems a good bet for second, although Dallas Seavey has made up a lot of ground in the last couple of days.    He  is likely third, and from there it  becomes muddled. John Baker  is 15^th into Koyuk and could move higher.    Katherine Keith is out of  Unalakleet in 30^th place, the last paying  position.

 

Yesterday I promised a tale or two about Joe Redington Sr., the man who started the Iditarod in the 1970’s.  I raced against Redington in the Iditarod, Kuskokwim  300, John Beargrease and Coldfoot Classic.  All provided stories, because  Old Joe was that kind of guy.  For example, in the  300, I was right behind Joe coming into Bethel during the  1982 race on a bright sunny day.  He was running second, but it looked like I was ready to pass him.   Joe was an  equipment hog, and always had a heavy sled full of gear.  We had about 10 miles to  go and it was too late for him to lighten his sled because there were no more  checkpoints.  But that didn’t stop Joe.  He started messing  with his double battery pack (five pounds or so) and pretended to drop it on the trail.  He hollered back to ask me if I would grab it.  I  grabbed  it, and realized it was a net change of ten pounds  in sled weight.  I spotted a snow machine driver  I knew and tossed him the battery pack, and  asked him to deliver it to Joe at the finish line. I was able to pass him anyway, even with his lighter sled.

 

In the 1986  Coldfoot race, held in April   in the Brooks Range, night time temps were dropping  out of sight. Before we started it was dropping to -45, and warming  to 20 above during long daylight hours in April.  On the first day of the race, Joe pulled up by me and we chatted a bit.  He was off his sled, and his dogs  pulled  the hook and took off  up the Koyukuk River,  which was mostly ice.  He hopped in my sled and we followed.  Luckily  we caught them in about  20 minutes, parked along the edge of the river just before dark. We camped in the woods nearby and the temp started to drop quickly.  Joe fed his dogs and crawled into his sled in the  biggest sleeping bag  I had ever seen about  midnight.  He zipped up his sled cover  and asked me to wake him up when I got up, which I planned for about   4  am, before daylight.  When I woke up after a cold night in the sled, I shook Joe’s sled. “Time to go Joe”.  Joe, then nearing 70 years old, asked me to  check his thermometer attached to his sled.  I shined my headlight at the gauge, which read -56 and reported  to Joe.  “I think I’ll sleep a little while  longer” he wisely responded. Since that day I have often wondered what would have happened  if we failed to find his team  before dark the night before. 

 

As years go by  fewer people  remember the role Joe played in starting and growing the Iditarod.  Without his effort  and vision there would  be no Iditarod, and likely no long distance racing.  All of us involved in the sport, including fans, need to be honor his role in this sport, and what better day than today when we prepare for the finish.

Two Team Race

This morning I suggested it might be a two team race by tonight, and  it looks like it is.  King and Zirkle left  Koyuk together  and no one gave chase until they were well down the trail.  Buser finally  followed, but he was three hours and 24 miles behind them and has been moving slower for some time.  Lindner  had a slow run across the bay, and he is still in   Koyuk, with little chance to catch either team.   The two Seaveys  have been moving fast, but apparently  figure they can’t keep it up without a decent rest.   Either Seavey could try to bolt through  Elim and cut the gap, but  that is looking like a long shot now.  Dallas  is now 26 miles behind King leaving  Koyuk.

If the two front runners  are the contenders, King would seem to have  the edge on speed.  He went out  one minute ahead of Zirkle  and that lead has now stretched to almost three miles.  He still has a long  way to go, but don’t bet against him at this point.  Look for a finish late Monday or early Tuesday in record time.

John Baker has moved up a bit.  He told Andy  Angstman at Unalakleet that the team is performing better recently.  He arrived in Shaktoolik in 15^th place, but is now bumping  into teams  that have shown more speed   throughout the race so moving up will be difficult.  His average moving speed of 7.2 mph for the entire race  is a full  mile per hour slower than Pete  Kaiser who is also in Shaktoolik. Baker has   often beaten faster teams but it takes long tough runs to do so.  Katherine Keith left Kaltag in 29^th place this evening.  The Iditarod pays  30 places.

Tomorrow morning the front runners will be resting in White  Mountain so I will diverge a bit with some stories about the  Father of the Iditarod, Joe Redington.  Feedback from readers suggests  that  there is plenty of analysis to be found elsewhere  but old  time dog race stories  are harder to find. I have a pretty good supply.

One final note, someone inquired about tracker fever, the  new disease mentioned this morning common among race fans.   It is clearly  a virus,  in fact it’s a computer virus.

Nome is a Long Ways Away

The run across the ice to  Koyuk  shows  Aily Zirkle  still in the lead, but a closer look shows  Jeff King moving faster in second place.  Right now,  he seems to  have the edge, but   Nome is  a long ways away.  Martin Buser and Sonny  Lindner are about  10-12  miles behind, and their speed  is a  bit off the pace of the front two.  The fastest moving team in sight is Dallas Seavey, about 20 miles behind  Zirkle and still not out of it.  His mad dash of the last 24 hours has put him back in the discussion, but it remains to be seen how much  dash he has  left.

A speedy run from  Kaltag has moved  Pete Kaiser  up in the standings.   His  9 hour run put  him  in 15^th place, just ahead of  John Baker who did the portage in 12 ½ hours.    Richie Diehl moved up to 18^th place, passing  Mike Williams Jr who now sits in 23^rd place, not yet in Unalakleet. Katherine Keith is in 29^th, also on the portage.  Meanwhile at the back of the pack rookie Elliot Anderson  has not yet reached  Ruby.

Yesterday’s  discussion of early race  communication brought back memories of how fans used to follow the race.  In early races,  Iditarod headquarters had a phone bank of volunteers  who had a list  of info to dispense to callers. Of course that was a long distance call from rural  Alaska, so time was at a premium  and some volunteers  were slow on the draw.  One tactic that worked was to claim to be from the media, which  of course produced immediate results.  I often called in as Scott Simpson from the New York Times and  people really responded.   Occasionally  a call to a  checkpoint would find a capable observer to describe the scene.  In some villages I had reliable buddies who would  have all the important news when  I called.

Later,  the fax machine became important.  I convinced  headquarters that I needed regular faxes of the standings, so they put me on their every hour list.  Bethel folks would stop by at all hours for an up date, and when I went to gatherings I would bring along the most recent  report and  tack it on the wall.  The internet changed all of that, and for many years most people had instant access to the latest standings, which at the time seemed light years ahead of the early races.  But the advent of the tracker  has completely changed the life of  the fan.  Now instead of  not enough information, we have too much.  I know I am not the only  person who spends way too much time  receiving race info on the computer.  Tracker fever might be a new medical condition.

Watch  for major moves at Koyuk.  Teams with time to make up often try to  do it there.  By late tonight, we  might be able to reduce our  contender list to two.

Quite the Battle at a Record Pace

This morning  it was suggested that by tonight  it would be possible to select three contenders, so here goes.   Earlier  I picked five  likely contenders  when the teams were around Ruby.  Two of those have faded.  Robert Sorlie has lost speed and dropped  back,  and is  likely out of contention.   Martin Buser is  still in second, but his traveling speed is such that he isn’t likely  to be able to keep up  with the three faster teams  now running near him.   The three remaining teams,  Aily Zirkle, Sonny Lindner  and  Jeff King should  battle it out for the win.  And it could be quite a battle.

Zirkle is in the lead.   She has had some great runs to get where she is  and will not surrender the lead easily.  She uses ski poles most of the time, and   has had excellent speed.   Lindner is second and has the slowest average speed of the three,  but has had a couple longer runs without a break.  That tactic  becomes significant  from now on, as breaks become less possible. King has taken more breaks, but is moving the fastest of the three most of the time. The fact that both  Lindner and King took their 24  hour break  at Ruby  is significant in figuring traveling speed.  The posted speed is based on the entire race, and it appears that both teams have had a better speed compared to  Zirkle since  Ruby, although those precise numbers  are not posted.

Zirkle left  Unalakleet after a four  hour break this evening.   Teams trying to win sometimes go direct to Koyuk  without a stop in Shaktoolik.  I don’t expect  Zirkle to do that yet.  Seasoned  race watchers  have suggested to me she likes to take a break every six hours or so, and likely will keep that up as  long as she is ahead.  Lindner would be more likely  to use that option to  erase  the  lead  Zirkle now has. King has also been breaking regularly, as he did last year after passing through Koyuk, in a move that enabled Mitch  Seavey to pass him and win.

I have a set of eyes on the ground in  Unalakleet,  Andy Angstman,  who is reporting what he sees.  He has contributed to the  naming of the three likely contenders, based on watching the teams arrive.  I also had  a chance to chat with five time champion Rick Swenson, who helped  Lindner prepare for the race. Swenson of course knows more about racing the Iditarod than anyone, and he also helped me  make my picks.  Swenson reported that despite his age (64) Lindner is a master at going without sleep.  There will likely be no sleep from  now until White Mountain, and that is often a factor in deciding who wins.

A team that was moving fast  in recent runs experienced  difficulty  just before reaching Unalakleet and scratched.  Nic Petit was running in third place at the time. He had trouble at the spot where Jeff King’s team faltered in another recent  Iditarod after a strong run.  John Baker left Kaltag tonight  in 18^th place, and Katherine Keith arrived in Nulato this afternoon in 30^th place.  She has  fallen well behind the top rookie Abbie West who left  Kaltag in 16^th place.

If there are  three teams still in the running tomorrow evening it will be unusual.  Most often there are one or two teams  out of reach of their challengers  by the time the front of the race reaches Elim.  The race is on record pace, and there seems  little reason to expect that will change.  The record, of course, belongs  to John Baker.