83 teams signed up for Iditarod

The Iditarod Dog Sled Race starts Sunday, my 38th birthday. Here's a preview – of the race, not my birthday – from Mary at AP:

Defending champion Jeff King shot back with one word when asked to describe his team for the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race set to start Saturday.

"Fast," said the 51-year-old musher, who will find himself in fleet company again as 82 teams - and some familiar faces - line up for the ceremonial start of the 1,100-mile race from Anchorage to Nome.

The restart, where the mushers get serious about getting a piece of this year's approximately $795,000 purse, begins Sunday in Willow, moved 30 miles up the trail because of too little, hard-packed snow near Anchorage.

King, a four-time winner from Denali Park, finished last year's race in less than half the time - nine days, 11 hours and 11 minutes. For winning, he got $69,000 and a new truck.

King will be in familiar company this year. There's Martin Buser, 48, of Big Lake and Doug Swingley, 53, of Lincoln, Mont., both four-time winners themselves who also will be hoping to join Rick Swenson of Two Rivers as the race's only five-time winner. Swenson last won in 1991.

King, as well as the other top mushers, will be keeping an eye on Robert Sorlie, 48, of Norway, who has won the race twice in only three tries.

While someone else might win, King said it is unlikely.

"I'm into statistics," he said. "Statistically, it is the four of us. There are going to be really long odds on anybody but the four of us winning the Iditarod," he said.

Lance Mackey, 36, of Fairbanks, whose father, Dick, and brother, Rick, have both won the Iditarod, is back again this year, fresh off his third consecutive victory in record-setting time in the 1,000-mile Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race, considered by many to be a tougher race than the Iditarod.

Mackey, the first musher to sign up for this year's race, said he will pick bib number 13 for his starting position - the same number worn by his father and brother in their sixth Iditarod races. Mackey is running for the sixth time.

Ramy Brooks, 38, of Healy, who finished third last year and was runner-up in 2002 and 2003, is back and eager for a win. Brooks, a Yukon Quest winner, comes from a family of renowned sprint mushers, grandfather Gareth Wright and mother Roxie Wright.

The full story is here.

Comments

[Bruce B]

Kuba wants to run the Iditarod!