Little Delving
Beyond Here There Be Dragons
An Iditarod Recap
Mar 16, 2006 07:27 PM Filed in:
Fun &
Interesting
Race Set By Timing Of Rest
By Craig Medred
Anchorage Daily News
Published: March 16, 2006
The extra rest Montana musher Doug Swingley gave his fading dog team along the Bering Sea coast on Tuesday allowed Jeff King from Denali Park to coast to a fourth Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race victory early Wednesday morning.
But Swingley's move just as surely secured second place and a $64,000 chunk of the 2006 Iditarod purse for the cagey veteran from Lincoln.
King collected $69,000 and a new truck for the win.
The teams of King and Swingley, who is also a four-time champion, were running neck and neck when the race reached the coast at Unalakleet, three-quarters of the way into the 1,100-mile race from Anchorage to Nome.
Swingley, however, admitted then his team was struggling. With the winds howling and the snow blowing, his young lead dogs had been balking every time they approached a patch of slippery, windblown, glare ice.
The team would subsequently ball up behind them. Swingley would have to get off the sled to jog forward, straighten things out and get his outfit moving again. It was frustrating for the musher, frustrating for the dogs and costly on the clock.
Swingley's speeds between checkpoints were falling as the well-rested team of Paul Gebhardt, who had taken a bold gamble and run his dogs well past the Iditarod's halfway point before taking the race's one mandatory, 24-hour rest, powered up the trail behind.
Swingley
decided his best hope was to let his dogs get extra rest along the
coast and see whether his team, which had the best speed early in
the race, could bounce back. They never fully recovered, but they
regrouped enough to beat Gebhardt by about an hour early
Wednesday.
Gebhardt got third and $59,800. It was a strong showing for a musher who some thought had gone too far by running to Galena on the frozen Yukon River before taking the long rest. Galena is about 700 miles into the Iditarod.
Swingley had taken his "24" -- as mushers refer to the mandatory stop -- halfway. King had stopped even earlier, at Takotna, only about 420 miles into the competition. Both King and Swingley agreed that turned out to be the key move in the race.
Upon leaving Takotna in the lead, Swingley's dogs found themselves wallowing for almost 100 miles along soft trail. When they got to Cripple to take their 24-hour break, the thermometer plunged to 50 degrees below zero.
That made it more difficult for Swingley and his dogs to get a long, comfortable rest, while the snow behind him set up almost like pavement for King, who grabbed a four-hour lead at Cripple. That margin enabled him to hold off a couple of surges by Swingley as the race moved to the coast.
Things didn't work out quite as well for DeeDee Jonrowe of Willow, who ended up fourth. The small, 51-year-old veteran musher made a run at the Iditarod leaders on the Yukon only to get pounded on the Kaltag Portage going to Unalakleet.
Winds blew so hard, they swept her sled off the trail, and she ended up with the dogs floundering in drifts. She arrived in Unalakleet looking beaten up and confessed she had just endured her most physically demanding Iditarod ever.
That's no small statement coming from someone who has survived breast cancer, 24 Iditarods and once, amazingly, managed to guide a dogsled through the notorious Dalzell Gorge without a brake.
A struggling Jonrowe got caught by Gebhardt on the coast but still claimed fourth -- her best finish since a second in 1998, which was the last time King won. Jonrowe was characteristically gracious about King's fourth victory.
"I'm thrilled for Jeff," she said. "He's a competitor that I really, really like. I feel like he's kind of a brother. He's a real special man with a real special family. He does a good job with his team and he stays focused."
Jonrowe won $55,600.
Behind
her at the finish line came John Baker from Kotzebue, a veteran
musher who didn't challenged for the lead this year but ran steady
to finish fifth.
Sometimes known for pushing the pace a little too hard early only to fade slightly toward the end, Baker was this year clearly holding his team back slightly to lurk within striking distance of the leaders, hoping they might fade this time. They didn't.
Still, Baker won $51,700 and managed to beat 2005 rookie of the year Bjornar Andersen of Norway, who discovered the hard way that the Iditarod isn't as easy as it might have looked last year.
Led by uncle Robert Sorlie, last year's champ and the leader of Team Norway, Andersen finished fourth in the 2005 Iditarod with temperatures mild, winds light and the trail well-marked. This year, he got to meet the other Iditarod:
Temperatures to 50 degrees below zero. Winds that could blow dogs and sleds off the trail. And some trail only marginally marked.
Andersen took a wrong turn early, got lost and said it cost about an hour and a half. It was not a lot of time to lose early in the race, but worrying about it for the next 800 miles might have cost him.
The 27-year-old musher said at the finish that he is still learning. He did, however, bag the best finish of his generation while King was claiming victory for the AARP crowd.
Having just turned 50, King became the oldest musher ever to win. He led a gang of elders. Swingley is 52, Jonrowe 51 and seventh-place finisher Ed Iten of Kotzebue is 53.
By Craig Medred
Anchorage Daily News
Published: March 16, 2006
The extra rest Montana musher Doug Swingley gave his fading dog team along the Bering Sea coast on Tuesday allowed Jeff King from Denali Park to coast to a fourth Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race victory early Wednesday morning.
But Swingley's move just as surely secured second place and a $64,000 chunk of the 2006 Iditarod purse for the cagey veteran from Lincoln.
King collected $69,000 and a new truck for the win.
The teams of King and Swingley, who is also a four-time champion, were running neck and neck when the race reached the coast at Unalakleet, three-quarters of the way into the 1,100-mile race from Anchorage to Nome.
Swingley, however, admitted then his team was struggling. With the winds howling and the snow blowing, his young lead dogs had been balking every time they approached a patch of slippery, windblown, glare ice.
The team would subsequently ball up behind them. Swingley would have to get off the sled to jog forward, straighten things out and get his outfit moving again. It was frustrating for the musher, frustrating for the dogs and costly on the clock.
Swingley's speeds between checkpoints were falling as the well-rested team of Paul Gebhardt, who had taken a bold gamble and run his dogs well past the Iditarod's halfway point before taking the race's one mandatory, 24-hour rest, powered up the trail behind.
Gebhardt got third and $59,800. It was a strong showing for a musher who some thought had gone too far by running to Galena on the frozen Yukon River before taking the long rest. Galena is about 700 miles into the Iditarod.
Swingley had taken his "24" -- as mushers refer to the mandatory stop -- halfway. King had stopped even earlier, at Takotna, only about 420 miles into the competition. Both King and Swingley agreed that turned out to be the key move in the race.
Upon leaving Takotna in the lead, Swingley's dogs found themselves wallowing for almost 100 miles along soft trail. When they got to Cripple to take their 24-hour break, the thermometer plunged to 50 degrees below zero.
That made it more difficult for Swingley and his dogs to get a long, comfortable rest, while the snow behind him set up almost like pavement for King, who grabbed a four-hour lead at Cripple. That margin enabled him to hold off a couple of surges by Swingley as the race moved to the coast.
Things didn't work out quite as well for DeeDee Jonrowe of Willow, who ended up fourth. The small, 51-year-old veteran musher made a run at the Iditarod leaders on the Yukon only to get pounded on the Kaltag Portage going to Unalakleet.
Winds blew so hard, they swept her sled off the trail, and she ended up with the dogs floundering in drifts. She arrived in Unalakleet looking beaten up and confessed she had just endured her most physically demanding Iditarod ever.
That's no small statement coming from someone who has survived breast cancer, 24 Iditarods and once, amazingly, managed to guide a dogsled through the notorious Dalzell Gorge without a brake.
A struggling Jonrowe got caught by Gebhardt on the coast but still claimed fourth -- her best finish since a second in 1998, which was the last time King won. Jonrowe was characteristically gracious about King's fourth victory.
"I'm thrilled for Jeff," she said. "He's a competitor that I really, really like. I feel like he's kind of a brother. He's a real special man with a real special family. He does a good job with his team and he stays focused."
Jonrowe won $55,600.
Sometimes known for pushing the pace a little too hard early only to fade slightly toward the end, Baker was this year clearly holding his team back slightly to lurk within striking distance of the leaders, hoping they might fade this time. They didn't.
Still, Baker won $51,700 and managed to beat 2005 rookie of the year Bjornar Andersen of Norway, who discovered the hard way that the Iditarod isn't as easy as it might have looked last year.
Led by uncle Robert Sorlie, last year's champ and the leader of Team Norway, Andersen finished fourth in the 2005 Iditarod with temperatures mild, winds light and the trail well-marked. This year, he got to meet the other Iditarod:
Temperatures to 50 degrees below zero. Winds that could blow dogs and sleds off the trail. And some trail only marginally marked.
Andersen took a wrong turn early, got lost and said it cost about an hour and a half. It was not a lot of time to lose early in the race, but worrying about it for the next 800 miles might have cost him.
The 27-year-old musher said at the finish that he is still learning. He did, however, bag the best finish of his generation while King was claiming victory for the AARP crowd.
Having just turned 50, King became the oldest musher ever to win. He led a gang of elders. Swingley is 52, Jonrowe 51 and seventh-place finisher Ed Iten of Kotzebue is 53.