Ready for Iditarod
All the 'big dogs' return for the 27th annual run to Nome

By CRAIG MEDRED
Daily News outdoor editor

All the big dogs will be back for the 27th running of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in March.

Defending champ Jeff King of Denali Park leads the list of 63 entrants announced by the Iditarod Trail Committee on Thursday, and nearly every big-name, long-distance musher except Susan Butcher is lined up behind him.

Butcher stays retired, but 1983 Iditarod champ Rick Mackey rejoins the race after several years running the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race from Fairbanks to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory.

Along with Mackey, there is a big contingent of past victors, including:

* Rick Swenson of Two Rivers, the race's only five-time champion.

* Martin Buser of Big Lake, a three-time winner.

* Doug Swingley of Lincoln, Mont., the only Outsider ever to win the race.

* And, of course, King.

The various members of this group have claimed victory in every race since 1990, though new blood made a strong showing in the last race:

* DeeDee Jonrowe of Willow was second, and she's back.

* Charlie Boulding of Manley was third, and he's back.

* Mitch Seavey of Seward was fourth, and he's back.

* John Baker of Kotzebue was fifth, and he's back.

Beginning to get the picture?

This could be the most competitive field in Iditarod history.

All told, 17 of this year's top-20 finishers paid the $1,750 entry fee to race again next year, Iditarod officials reported. Those 17 will be joined by four former top-20 competitors, led by Mackey.

The others are Peryll Kyzer of Willow, who finished ninth in her last race in 1997; Ed Iten of Kotzebue, 14th in his last run in 1992; and Sonny Lindner of Delta Junction, a regular running mate of Swenson's until Lindner dropped out of racing in the early 1990s.

It does not appear to be a good year to be a rookie musher with high expectations, but there are 16 of them, including a Norwegian, a Montanan, a Floridian, a newspaper reporter and some guy from Baltimore.

Outside and foreign mushers outnumber mushers from the Bush, which sends five competitors into the Iditarod this year: Baker, Iten, Aaron Burmeister from Nome, rookie Russell Lane from Point Hope and Mike Williams from Akiak.

Europe alone enters almost as many, with four: Two Norwegians and a pair of Englishmen. Then there are two from Canada and one from Australia.

The seven foreigners take the trail with nine mushers from other states: Three from Montana, two from Wyoming, and one each from Idaho, Maryland, South Carolina and Florida.

If all the rookies complete their 500 miles of approved qualifying races by March - and if no one is forced to scratch due to injury, financial problems, or having their dog team being eaten by a grizzly bear ala ill-fated Quest entrant Sepp Hermann - there will 63 teams gracing Anchorage's Fourth Avenue for the 10 a.m. ceremonial start of the race on March 6.

That's the same number that started this year. Fifty-one hung on until the finish line in Nome, 1,100 miles and nine-to-14 days north of Anchorage, on the other side of the Alaska Range.

Iditarod officials are expecting this year's winner to again finish in nine days and change, though they warn that the race can always be slowed by storms. The record time is 9 days, 2 hours and 42 minutes.

Swingley set that standard on the race's southern route in 1995. The southern route - from Ophir through Iditarod, Shageluk, Anvik and then up the Yukon River to Kaltag - is thought to be a little longer than the northern route from Ophir through Cripple to Ruby, then down the Yukon River to Kaltag.

The race will follow the southern route this year. Buser led the way the last time the race ran this way, leading Swingley into Nome by a few hours in 9 days and 8 hours. King was third.

In 1993, King started his run of Iditarod victories with a victory on the southern route. If he can win again this year, he will match Butcher as the second-winningest musher in Iditarod history.

But there are going to be a whole bunch of very good dog drivers, trying to see that doesn't happen.