Day 7

New gang of four leads the race

By CRAIG MEDRED
Anchorage Daily News

Published: March 10, 2007
Last Modified: March 14, 2007 at 06:33 PM

A Gang of Four was leading the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race up the windy and frozen Yukon River on Saturday, but it wasn't The Gang of Four that became the focus of so much pre-race attention in Anchorage a week ago.

Only two gang members were as expected -- four-time Iditarod champs Martin Buser from Big Lake and Jeff King from Denali Park.

King won the Iditarod last year. Buser had what was for him a horrible 2006 race as his team dropped out of the top-20 for the first time in years. He subsequently reorganized, regrouped and showed he had the potential for a powerhouse when he won the Kuskokwim 300 Sled Dog Race out in Bethel in midwinter, and then welcomed son Rohn across the finish line in fourth with the kennel's second-string team.

It was pretty obvious then that Buser had a big pool of top dogs from which to draw for his Iditarod team, and that has shown itself throughout this race. Since the beginning, Buser has been in or near the lead, and usually posting the fastest team speeds between checkpoints.

He has not, however, been alone.

Since just before halfway, King has been there with him as have Lance Mackey from Fairbanks and Paul Gebhardt from Kasilof. Gebhardt was third behind King and Doug Swingley in last year's Iditarod. Swingley, another four-time Iditarod champ, is one of those who was originally expected to be in The Gang of Four, along with two-time Norwegian champ Robert Sorlie.

Unfortunately, the veteran from Lincoln, Mont., collided with a tree as his team climbed into the Alaska Range early in the race. Swingly cracked some ribs, dislocated a thumb and decided it would be wise to quit.

Norwegian Sorlie, meanwhile, has been struggling with a team that just doesn't seem to have its usual pizzaz.

Race observers report that the musher from Hurdal has several times had to lead the dogs out of checkpoints himself. Once they get on the trail and moving, Iditarod statistics show their speeds are respectable, but they just don't seem to have much enthusiasm for the race.

Whether they are sick with some sort of bug, tired or just simply in a bad mood this year, nobody knows. Sorlie, for his part, wasn't saying much when he went through Anvik on the way up the Yukon Saturday.

Gebhardt -- who pulled on a snowmachine helmet in Anvik to armor his face against frigid, pounding winds blowing almost straight down the trail -- and Mackey appeared appeared in much better spirits. The latter, especially, might have reason to think this Iditarod is turning in his favor.

With daytime temperatures barely rising above zero and dropping to 20 below or colder at night while the winds seem to be almost constantly blowing in the faces of the dogs and their masters, what began as a race off speed is looking more and more like a race of endurance.

Average team speeds for the four leaders on the 90 mile push from the Grayling checkpoint upriver on the wide and windswept Yuko to the deserted outpost of Eagle Island dropped to under 7 mph.

Mackey's dogs -- coming off a third-straight victory only weeks ago in the 1,000-mile Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race from Whitehose, Yukon Territory to Fairbanks -- are used to this. Compared to the Iditarod, the Quest is a relatively slow, grind-it-out affair.

There is an old adage in endurance racing that says "you can do what you've trained to do." If that holds true here, Mackey could be in a great position.

His dogs do appear a tad slower than those of King or Buser, maybe a quarter to a half-mph on average. But there ability to make long runs at these speeds were well established in the Quest. As the race nears the coast, Mackey might find himself in a position where he can use that to advantage, pulling off a long run and grabbing the lead when the other leaders are forced to stop to rest to keep their teams moving strong. King was clearly thinking about that in Anvik. He noted there was growing talk along the trail that Mackey's dogs appeared "bombproof." King didn't buy it.

"There's no such thing," he said. "A dog’s a dog."

Asked to run too long, too hard or with too little rest, and any of them will throttle back to a walk or quit. All of the Iditarod leaders are well aware of that at this point. The last thing any of them wants to do now is push a team beyond the point of easy recovery.

That is the surest way to lose the race. Tire a team too much, and it can take 24 hours or more to get it back up to optimum speed.

And with the leaders now running so close together, a mistake like that could cost not only a victory, but possibly a big fall in the standings, because not far behind the leaders is another big pack of mushers with teams that look every bit is strong.

They are led by Ramy Brooks from Healy, another former Quest champ and two-time Iditard runnerup. With him is established veteran Ed Iten from Kotzebue, whose dogs accustomed to battling into winds look especially good, and a couple younger mushers making big moves this year, Zack Steer from Sheep Mountain and Cim Smyth from Big Lake.

None of them can be counted out as contenders as of yet.

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