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Baker on pace to scorch Iditarod recordIditarod Trail Sled Dog Race leader John Baker from Kotzebue is now on pace to shatter the course record set by four-time champ Martin Buser in 2002. Buser that year made it the 900-plus miles from Willow to Nome in 8 days, 22 hours, 46 minutes and 2 seconds. The veteran, Big Lake dog driver again this year led the race to the halfway point at a furious clip, but still significantly slower than 2002. Despite that, the pace was too much for many teams, including Buser's. It began to fall back along with the team of defending Iditarod champ Lance Mackey from Fairbanks and some other big names. Baker, an Iditarod veteran with 11 top 10 finishes without a victory, was content to let Hugh Neff from Tok and Canadians Sebastian Schnuelle and Hans Gatt take over the pace-setting from halfway to the Yukon River, but there he began to exert the power of a team that depends more on its steadiness than its speed. Baker's dogs aren't as fast as Buser's in terms of flat-out speed, but they are able to run longer and rest less. By the time Iditarod 2011 turned off the Yukon River at Kaltag and headed for the Bering Sea, Baker had used this strength to build himself a race lead of a couple hours, but he still lagged behind the record pace. John Baker's Iditarod rest strategyAll of that changed at Unalakleet on the Bering Sea coast. Baker arrived at Unalakleet almost two hours later than Buser had in 2002. Actually, he arrived about five hours later than Buser did in 2002, but Buser's time needs to be corrected because the race in 2002 started from Willow at 11 a.m. It this year left Willow at 2 p.m. Still, even with the bonus of three hours added to Buser's near-midnight arrival time at the coast in 2002, Baker's 5:04 a.m. arrival put him well behind record pace. But then he made a move that changed everything. Chased into Unalakleet by Gatt, Schnuelle and new -- and still threatening -- challenger Ramey Smyth from Willow, Baker trimmed team rest. Where Buser had stayed six hours and five minutes in 2002, Baker stayed only four hours and eight minutes. Because of this one strategic move, Baker pulled out of the coastal village five minutes ahead of record pace. Smyth was not far behind, which has changed everything from Unalakleet north and west toward the finish line in Nome. In 2002, Buser had a three-hour advantage on Ramy Brooks from Nenana when the race hit the coast. Buser used that lead to maximum advantage. He let Brooks peck away time, but never let Brooks get close enough to seriously challenge. Baker has not had so much of an advantage because Smyth has steadily pushed the pace. He moved within less than 45 minutes of the lead at Shaktoolik and remains less than an hour back. Because of the pressure exerted by Smyth's chase, Baker has been forced to trim his rest times to stay ahead. In the process, he has gained steadily on the record time. In 2002, Buser rested 4 hours and 56 minutes in Shaktoolik, the next checkpoint after Unalakleet. Baker this year rested only two hours and 56 minutes. At Koyuk, another checkpoint on, Buser rested 4 hours and 15 minutes in 2002. The time for Baker this year was 3 hours and 13 minutes. And finally, at Elim, the checkpoint Baker left Monday morning, Buser rested two hours and 55 minutes in 2002. Baker stopped for only seven minutes this year. These changes in the rest schedule put Baker hours ahead of the record pace. He reached White Mountain at 4:03 p.m. Monday. Buser was in there at 3:49 p.m. on a Monday in 2002, but if you add the 3-hour correction for the differing start times his comparative arrival time was 6:49 p.m. This puts Baker 2 hours, 46 minutes ahead of record pace at White Mountain.
Go John Baker & team - I can't think of a more solid, good-natured and ethical musher to break this record. I am cheering for your team by the minute - each one counts! Have a great rest up in White Mtn, and look sharp, think sharp when you leave for Nome. Nice article - even though you overlooked the obvious that this is the southern route (slightly longer than the northern route, and whose record is owned by doug swingley). Which only serves to make the potential to break the overall record even more impressive. I agree the southern route is probably longer. The fancy GPS tracker now puts the southern route at 936 miles. If memory serves me right, the GPS put the northern route at 908 miles last year. But everyone whose been up the trail agrees the GPS misses a lot of zigs and zags that over the course of the race add miles. We're this year calling the Iditarod a 900-mile race, based on the rounding of 908 and 936. It might, however, be closer to 1,000 miles on both routes, with the difference between the two small enough (16 miles by the GPS) to make the variations in the placement of the trail enough to determine which route is longer in any given year. Coming back from Finger Lake to Skwentna on a snowmachine this year, I noted my odometer showed the trail five miles shorter than last year, which can only be attributable to its movement in the many muskegs there. And last year on the run to Nome, there was a huge swing in the trail out toward the Bering Sea as the route crossed the Norton Bay ice to Koyuk. That detour must have added at least 10 miles to the northern route. The trail went so far out of the way I thought at one point it was just going to skip Koyuk and go straight to Elim. As is the case on the sea ice there, the trail can wander significantly on the Yukon River ice, making it difficult to say exactly the real length of the Iditarod in any given year. It certainly varies by miles, if not tens of miles, in any given winter. For determining the race record, though, this wandering might pale in comparison to the relocation of the restart from Wasilla to Willow. That's a fixed change that cut 15 to 20 miles (or about two hours) off the race. If you believe the GPS numbers that show only an 18 mile difference in the northern and southern routes, Buser ran about the same distance, or maybe a little more, on the northern route in 2002 than Baker ran on the southern route this year, all because of that Wasilla versus Willow start. Whatever the case, the one thing we can say is that both mushers ran speedy races. |
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