by Joe Runyan
This is the time for the annual Top Ten List, a very risky enterprise for any Iditarod commentator, accompanied with a low level of accuracy.
But, I have to do it. My only option for any kind of credibility is to call Dean Osmar, the 1984 Iditarod champ, and arrange breakfast at Iditarod headquarters located at the Millenium Hotel. Dean has a photographic memory of Iditarod data, still maintains a kennel of racing huskies, and leases a number of dogs to top mushers including Dee Jonrowe and Ray Redington. By far, he is my most reliable source of Iditarod insight. I even ask him for telephone numbers, which he can do from memory.
With incessant pressure, between bites of a homesteader omellette, I get Dean to write down his top ten picks. He asks, “Can this be a preliminary list? If I hear more, can I change it?” Sure, just write it down. Which he does as we discuss the rationale behind each pick.
Robert Sorlie Robert has flown from Norway with his teams and has won two out of four Iditarods and has the best batting average in Iditarod history. Dean and I both assume his team is “super”, as reported by our Norwegian contacts. I would give Mitch Seavey (listed next) the respect he deserves as 2013 Champ and put him number one. Yet, for the small detail of 1 or 2, Dean and I agree that Sorlie is a game changer.
Yesterday, Tuesday, our Insider crew set up cameras at Tudor Track to interview and film 2011 Champ John Baker. When prompted, John agreed that Sorlie will impact the competition to the front. But, speaking for himself and others, believed that the front pack now understood his strategy and would probably not react early to his push to the front.
I called up Doug Swingley, the 4x champ, now retired, from Montana about Sorlie’s relentless race strategy. He pushes from the start of the race with long runs and predictable rests that do no allow luxury by his competitors. Stop to talk to a tourist or waste a minute in a checkpoint and Sorlie will say, “thankyou for the minute, I hope you can get it back.” Doug says, “No pain, no brain.” This is a short cut way describing Sorlie’s strategy. He trains his dogs to a run and rest schedule and will stick to it on the race trail with predictable consistency. He doesn’t change his schedule on the fly or react to other mushers. He is an island to himself. He has been racing all winter in training and does not have to think. Just do, do not think, is his mantra. “No pain, no brain.”
Often, in checkpoints, he can be seen sitting with his dogs, quite happy to explain the merits of his trail friends . He looks at his watch. He says something very quietly and unintelligible to his team, who stand up and shake straw from their coats. Then he is gone.
Mitch Seavey The two time champ is characterized by a methodical race strategy that puts him into position in the last third of the race to win. I remind myself, despite his predisposition to hang with the front but not forcefully taking the lead early in the race, that he probably had the fastest team in the race going over the Alaska Range (first third of the race) in 2013. Mitch likes to bank extra rest for the final push. He is interested in winning, not necessarily in breaking records, and assumes that he will reel in front runners in the last third of the race. This has worked for him, but it could be risky if Sorlie (or another front runner) gains too much to the front. Seavey is compact, wiry, and trail ready. Anectdotally, Dean and I have heard that he lost a pound and now weighs 129, an unbelievable advantage as a musher on the runners over mushers with a higher center of gravity ((not good to be a heavy musher).
Aliy Zirkle Everyone I talked to universally believes Aliy to be a top contender. With 2nd place finishes in 2012 and 2103 and another great Yukon Quest win by husband allen Moore, one expects her team to be elite. Her fans are expecting Aliy to battle with the front in 2014. Dean and I both put her at the top of the list. As discussed in previous articles, her dogs are noticeably petite in comparison to the 60 to 65 pound team members of other top mushers, but we have learned that Aliy’s team can handle rough trail and fast trail with equal poise.
Jeff King The 4x champ has been impressing Iditarod insiders all race season. No one doubts his ability to win again with his strategy that relies on a fast moving team and a very conservative race plan. Dont be surprised if he even gives five hours to the front runners (include Sorlie) in the first half of the race, then emerges to the front by the Bering Sea Coast.
Dallas Seavey The 2012 champ is young (still under thirty) and brash. I love this guy in checkpoints. He spins, jogs, moves with purpose, and does it with focus. His team must pick up on his energy. “While some mushers may languish with vacant sleep deprived stares at a food bowl or a zipper on the sled bag, Dallas is MOVING. His dogs have perfect straw beds, a full meal, a quick medical check up, in record time. As a former top athlete and amatuer international wrestler, he understands the regimen of training and preparation. The only question that lingers is the raw, pure , athletic, quality of his team. Can his team match the other front runners? He and kennel are works in progress. He wears mountain hiking boots so he can run hills. He knows how to win and expects to win.
Jake Berkowitz Jake has been impressing pundits all winter. He is particularly noted for finishing races with full teams and seems to have escaped injuries in training, despite fast hard trails in Alaska this winter. While other mushers have been attending to nagging little injuries common to hard trails—sprained wrists, sore joints— he seems to have controlled the team. His distractors would argue that Jake is unwilling to take bold moves at the right moment to win, but in his defense, others believe he has the team to win. Jake, it should objectively be noted, is a big guy and gives a big weight advantage, for example to the musher ready physiques of the SEaveys, and Jeff King.
Ray Redington RaY has been in the top ten long enough to understand all the nuances of winning. The big question is the readiness of his team, which has had annoying injuries sideline some of his super stars, including one of his favorite leaders. Still, half his team are capable of leading.
Nicholas Petit Dean has been particularly impressed with Petit all winter, and believes the tall, very slim, quick moving musher is capable of surprising the Iditarod field. Certainly I was impressed with his top ten finish in 2013. The guy seems tireless, handles sleep deprivation with the best, and obviously has an uncanny connection with his team. Dean, specifically, described watching him handle his team, deftly manuevering through parking lots, with quiet unerring “gees” and “haws” to his leaders. Petit’s control of his team is an outward demonstration of his ability to navigate very difficult trail, but it also suggests subtle advantages. We know that the team, for example, understands the protocol of the checkpoint—-all dogs are perfect citizens and stay on the bed, leaders string the team out in a nice straight line, and everyone cleans up their plates and eats a full meal. Team management and control is a huge race factor.
On another occassion, Dean watched Petit move his team effortlessly into overdrive on the final miles of a race, but then seems capable of also slowing them down and “walking” them through difficult sections of trail. We think this musher can really handle dogs and the dogs like him.
Sonny Lindner Sonny is sixty-four years old and one of those human beings that philosophically understands himself well enough to know that sled dogs are his passion, and secondarily, the outcome in a race is a reflection of how well he prepared the team—“sort of.” I have known Sonny for a long time as a good friend, having raced with him the year he won the Yukon Quest in 1984. He has the passion and the experience to create wonderfully prepared teams. At the starting line, his dogs with glossy thick coats, muscled, and animated are works of art and his sled his neatly packed and organized like the construction projects he manages in the summer building season. Sonny earned his place in the top ten in 2013 and is quite capable of quietly emerging to the front, especially as we have been informed that he has purchased and added key dogs to his kennel after the 2013 Iditarod.
Joar Ulsom Seventh and the rookie of the year in 2013, this Norwegian has been training in Alaska all winter, and once again proving he is not a one time flash that appeared to the front and disappeared. I had fun with Joar last year, calling him the “Norwegian Barbarian” and suggesting that he subsisted by running down arctic hares on the trail. He is very tall, very athletic, and quite in tune with the arctic, having grown up far north in Norway, and has an unassuming, humorous, personality. Honestly, he was a surprise in 2013. At Koyuk on the Bering Sea Coast, I remember that he was looking for another pair of boots. Finally, he discovered that a pilot had a pair of size thirteen, but he probably would have preferred a fourteen. Where did that young guy come from? we kept asking. But , he has proved himself and Dean puts him in the top ten to solidly perform again.
Finally, as a disclaimer, we have added Ralph Johanessen, Norwegian rookie musher. Even though we dont know him, we must recognize the Norwegian champ. Friends of mine in Norway report that he may have a better team than Sorlie, a great admix to Iditarod . I really want to see his team and hope our insider crew catch him .
Further, let’s not forget 2011 champ John Baker. We saw his team on Tuesday at the Tudor track as his luxuriously furred huskies trotted in time like a synchronome. He has always been frustrated in the first few days of racing by warm weather common to the Willow restart—-his dogs are trained in very severe weather above the arctic circle at Kotzebue and have thick coaTS. I know he has been thinking about this problem—maybe the reason he brought his dogs to Anchorage a few days earlier.. Baker has the fastest Iditarod time ever of 8 days 18 hours 46 minutes. He knows how to blister the trail. After he completed his sixteen mile training run, he commented, as much to himeself and the black spruce on the training trail as anybody listening, “I think this team is smoother than my winning team.” Honestly, I don’t think one of his chargers was less than 60 pounds. Baker needs a trail that favors strength.
Cym Smyth, Dean insists, is a team to watch.
Martin Buser, the 4x champ, was a front runner in 2013. Fans may recall that he used a very unorthodox strategy and travelled over the Alaska Range to Rohn checkpoint for a 24 hour mandatory break. Very unconventional. But, it worked. He was leading the race on the Yukon (over half way) but then encountered absolutely dreary conditions of dissolving wet snow, rain, and depressingly soft trail. His team faded, but insider pundits do not forget he had a wonderful team. In the 2014 pre season, his team has been winning races and impressing observers. Buser has been somewhat of an enigma the last several years, but I cant help but think that he and team are ready to dominate. Some would observe that Buser requires a little luck, because his strategy asks for a clear trail in front of him. If he can grab the lead with his very fast team and stay on a good trail, without weather confrontations of snow and wind, he will be difficult to catch and pass.
