February 14, 2009

• The Big Day Is Here!

  

  There’s my pretty red and white valentine for you.

  Yukon Quest starts today.  Veteran Musher Gerry Willomitzer (left), who is providing insider commentary on this year’s race, said that, “Newton Marshall [below] will be the most photographed musher of the 2009 Yukon Quest.“  The various members of Newton’s Jamaica Dog Sled Team have lots of international experience racing dogs both on snow and in wheeled carts on more tropical trails, but this will be their first thousand mile sled dog race.  I will be watching and reporting on Newton Marshall’s progress as the race proceeds. 

  

  He lists Quest veteran Hans Gatt and his partner Susie Rogan as his dog handlers, but if that’s not a joke it had to be the result of some kind of misunderstanding, because Gatt is racing the Quest and Rogan is running in the shorter concurrent YQ300.  They won’t have time to help Newton Marshall handle his dogs at checkpoints.  Gatt and Rogan’s kennel has provided at least some of the dogs running in the Jamaican team, and have helped Marshall train for the Quest.

  Last night I heard some talk on the radio from three of the Alaskan mushers in this year’s Quest.  Quest rookie and four-time Iditarod Champion, Martin Buser, holder of the current Iditarod speed record, set in 2002, of 8 days, 22 hours and 46 minutes, was asked about his reasons for branching out to the Quest.  He said he is “mushing for tuition.”  His two sons, Nicolai and Rohn, are in college.  If he takes the Quest seriously enough, I think he has a good chance to finish in the money.

  Jon Little, who has finished the Quest once before, and who had four dogs killed by a car during a training accident last fall, got a surprise phone call from Jeff King, who was passing through Whitehorse on his way home from that other international sled dog race, the Wyoming Stage Stop.  Jeff had some dogs to drop off with Jon.  I’m not clear whether the dogs are Jeff King’s or if they belonged to Jon Little in the first place, because I know that Jon had leased some of his dogs to Jeff.  Anyway, presumably, that phone call and meetup improved Jon Little’s chances in the Quest this year.

  Gerry Willomitzer has said that he thinks Lance Mackey’s youngest brother, “prefers to be known simply as Jason Mackey,” but yesterday someone apparently asked Jason to draw comparisons between himself and his brother, who has won six of the last eight thousand-mile sled dog races:  four Yukon Quests in a row and the last two Iditarods.

  In his rookie attempt at the Quest, Jason Mackey said, “I do have high expectations.  Duplicating what he’s done?  Humanly impossible!  Do I think I can win the Quest this year?  Absolutely!”  Confidence runs in that family, and so far they have shown they have the competence to back it up.

  I know the valentine up top is sorta shoddy and possibly in poor taste.  Here’s one for you that’s a bit more high-toned.

  

  

  • 4:30 pm
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