The Race is Taking Shape!  (Friday, March 12, 2004)
by Ultimate Iditarod's Jim Gallea

Norwegian holds slim lead as teams begin run on the mighty Yukon

Jeff King was the first musher to reach the Yukon River yesterday afternoon when he pulled into the riverside village of Ruby just after 3:30 PM Alaska Standard Time.  The next musher into Ruby was Norwegian Kjetil Backen, who didn’t arrive until 4:20 this morning, nearly 13 hours behind King.  At 7:14 this morning, 61-year old Charlie Boulding was the third to arrive in Ruby, follwed very closely by John Baker, Martin Buser, and Mitch Seavey in that order.  Ramy Brooks, last year’s second place finisher arrived just 49 minutes behind Seavey at 8:37 this morning.

Now I realize I am throwing out a dizzying whirl of times, positions, and mushers’ names.  I also realize that these times make Jeff King appear to have the lead, so let me shed a little more light on the race that is unfolding…

Because Jeff King opted to take his mandatory 24 hour layover (read more about the layover below) at Ruby rather than Cripple, Takotna, or McGrath like the other top teams, Jeff arrived in Ruby first.  But he will have to wait until about 6 PM tonight before he can leave Ruby.  (The layover is actually 24 hours plus the start time differential, so Jeff’s layover is actually about 26.5 hours.)  On the other hand, Kjetil Backen, who took his “24” at Takotna, left Ruby in first place at noon today after taking a very nice 8-hour rest.  Boulding, Baker, Buser, Seavey, and Brooks will likely be leaving after 6-8 hours of rest as well.  This gives them a lead of at least 2 or 3 hours over King, and puts these mushers within about 3 hours of Backen. 

While three hours can be a lot time in some races, it is a paper-thin lead at this point in the Iditarod.  What's more, the fact that a handful of teams are chasing Backen is truly amazing.  Last year, Norwegian Robert Sorlie had a three hour lead over Ramy Brooks at this point in this race, while Martin Buser was yet another three hours behind Brooks in third.  This year, Backen has a similar three hour lead, but a regular army of top drivers is breathing down his neck.  Sorlie was able to maintain his lead on Brooks and won the race last year, but I am beginning to doubt that Backen's lead will hold.  A lot of racing is yet to come, and by the looks of things, we are in for a good show.

The 24 Hour Layover

The rules of the Iditarod require that each musher stop for a full 24 hours at a checkpoint of his or her choice during the race.  Because the location of the 24 hours layover is optional, not every musher takes the rest at the same checkpoint.  Some mushers prefer to take their 24 hour rest earlier in the race, while other mushers prefer to go about halfway or even a bit farther before taking their extended “time-out.”

The halfway strategy was first used successfully by Doug Swingley in 1995.  Since then, such a plan has become commonplace among the Iditarod’s top mushers.  That is exactly what 2003 champion Robert Sorlie did last year.  And it’s what mushers like Martin Buser, Mitch Seavey, and John Baker did this year.  On the contrary, Ramy Brooks and Kjetil Backen took their 24 hour rest at Takotna, 100 miles before the halfway point at Cripple, and Charlie Boulding took his big rest at McGrath, a full 120 miles from Cripple.  But Jeff King went the other direction.  Jeff went all the way to Ruby before he declared his 24-hour rest. 

So what’s the big deal? 

The reason that the location of the 24-hour layover is important is that this rest is one of the only times during the Iditarod that both musher and dogs get a quality long rest.  Think of rest as time on a battery charger.  The longer the rest, the more the battery gets recharged.  By this analogy, the farther a team goes before taking the 24-hour layover, the more energy the team has for the last half of the race.  But there is a catch--if a team goes too far without recharging, they can lose time on their competitors because their pace slows too much. 

So where’s the best place to take the 24 hour rest?

The short answer is that there probably isn’t a single best place.  Many factors contribute to the issue, and the most important factors are the athletic ability of the dogs, their pre-race training, and the way that the musher manages and cares for the team during the race.  What's right for one team may not be the best for another. 

The big question at this point is whether Backen's strategy of taking his 24 earlier will work better than the strategies of mushers like Mitch Seavey, Martin Buser, John Baker, and Jeff King, who rested for 24 hours at the halfway point.