Warm weather plays into strategies

As unseasonably warm weather has moved into the Kuskokwim River valley, the Iditarod trail has softened, and teams are being forced to make adjustments to their strategies. Some of the teams have the benefit of running the Kuskokwim 300 (K300) race back in January in western Alaska on similar trails where warm weather had a major impact on the race outcome. Current Iditarod race leader, Mitch Seavey won that race. He indicated he was able to succeed by continually swapping out his lead dogs to keep them interested in moving forward through wet snow and plenty of overflow. He says having most of his team able to lead at any time gives him this option.

Some of the mushers have indicated they are having trouble figuring out which dog should lead including last year's Iditarod winner Lance Mackey. Hobo and Larry, two of Mackey's more dependable lead dogs got into a fight prior to the Rohn checkpoint. Larry apparently won that fight and Hobo was dropped at the Rohn checkpoint. Larry won the golden harness award at the 2007 Iditarod, and Hobo won the golden harness at the majority of Mackey's Yukon Quest 4 victories.

With the race now entering the middle stage and teams starting to take their 24 hour layovers, the view of who is leading becomes difficult to determine. Mitch Seavey appears to be in the driver seat with the lead and some rest in the bank at McGrath and the experience from the Kuskowim race for him and his team to bank on. With high bib numbers Kjetil Backen, Paul Gebhardt, and John Baker are looking good given they will have less additional time tacked on to their 24 hour layover. Gebhardt and Baker also had the experience of this year's K300.

Two other teams that ran in theK300 are the Martin and Rohn Buser. This father/son duet has been running close to each other. Kathy Chapoton who is wife to Martin and mother to Rohn thinks this is a good thing for Martin since it keeps him from pacing to fast and burning his team out for the later stages.