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| 28th
year of Alaska's great race
|
| 01/11/00 COPPER BASIN 300 MIRED IN CONFUSION By Craig Medred Daily News Outdoors Editor Musher Paul Gebhardt led the Copper Basin 300 Sled Dog Race across the finish line in Gakona on Monday night, but it has yet to be determined whether he won. Only five minutes behind the Kasilof musher at the finish line was the Alaska distance mushing surprise of the year: 23-year-old Jessie Royer of Montana. But it's unclear whether she will remain in second. Race officials were huddled at the Gakona Lodge and Trading Post on Monday night trying to mediate a rules dispute that could shake up the entire first five. Officials who could be reached had no details on the dispute. Officials who reportedly had the details couldn't be reached. Race central in Glennallen said the official winner and the order of the top 10 won't be announced until the race banquet tonight. Time penalties will apparently decide who finishes where. This is not unprecedented for the Copper Basin. Three-time Iditarod champ Martin Buser of Big Lake finished first in the race last year but then had to sweat out a 30-minute penalty to see if he would be the official winner. He had been penalized for leaving a mess of booties, about a dozen dog bowls and some other gear at the last checkpoint before the finish. Race rules require mushers to pick up everything but the straw for the dogs. As it turned out, the 30-minute penalty didn't matter because second-place finisher Linwood Fiedler was 40 minutes behind, though he officially ended up 55 minutes back when he too was penalized. Fiedler got a 15-minute penalty for failing to wear a bib into a checkpoint. Neither Fiedler nor Buser was in the race this year. The flu forced them out, with Buser missing his the first race since the inception of this 300-miler centered around Glennallen 11 years ago. The time penalties were still there, however, and they really stand to complicate a finish in which the top five teams came in within only 22 minutes. A 30-minute penalty this time could radically change the starting order, and even a 15-minute penalty would likely shake things up, given that: * Royer is only five minutes behind Gebhardt. * Hans Gatt of Atlin, British Columbia, is only 10 minutes behind Royer. * Jon Little of Kasilof is only two minutes behind Gatt. * And Thomas Tetz of Carcross, Yukon Territory, is only five minutes behind Little. All of which has cast something of a pall on the finish of the up-and-coming Gebhardt, the sixth-place musher in last year's Iditarod, and the strong, surprise showing of Royer, a youngster the Minneapolis Star and Tribune six years ago proclaimed ''the next Susan Butcher.'' Royer was then a 17-year-old protege of the brothers Swingley. And she had just urged one of their dog teams to an impressive fourth-place finish in Minnesota's John Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon. Greg Swingley was already well-known in Minnesota as a two-time winner of the Beargrease. Brother Doug would go on to win the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, becoming the first non-Alaskan musher to do that and then come back to win again last year to prove the first victory was no fluke. Swingley said Monday he always expected big things from Royer. ''I don't know how much we taught her,'' he added. ''She was just kind of real doggy from the start.'' After a couple of years working for the Swingleys, Doug said, Royer ''just took off and started her own (sled dog) tour business. She's always been a hard-working kid. She's probably learned more on her own than we ever taught her.'' He remembered that when she made her teenage dash at victory in the 1994 Beargrease, the movie ''Iron Will,'' about a Midwestern youth's turn-of-the-century dog race against evil competitors, was just hitting the nation's movie theaters. ''They were calling her Iron Wilma,'' he said, laughing. But the Swingleys always teased her by calling her ''Jessie Butcher.'' Butcher, of course, was already famous for her four Iditarod victories. 1994 would be her last Iditarod before she retired to start a family. Royer, meanwhile, was just getting started. ''I'm not going to be the next Susan Butcher,'' she told a Star and Tribune reporter at the time. ''I'm going to be the first Jessie Royer.'' No matter how things shake out officially in the Copper Basin today, she seems well on her way to making her mark at that. Here are the uncorrected, unpenalized and unofficial finishing times as of Monday night: Across the finish line in Gakona: Gebhardt, 6:08 p.m.; Royer, 6:13 p.m.; Gatt, 6:23 p.m.; Little, 6:25 p.m.; Tetz, 6:30 p.m.; John Barron of Willow, 7:26 p.m., and DeeDee Jonrowe of Willow, 8 p.m. Out of Chistochina: Cim Smyth of Fairbanks, 6:29 p.m.; Brian MacDougall of Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, 6:40 p.m.; Doug Grilliot of Willow, 6:42 p.m.; Sonny King of Spartanburg, NC., 7:03 p.m.; Christian Clerc of Washington state, 7:20 p.m. Out of Summitt Lake: Andy Willis of Willow, 9:52 a.m.; Tony Willis of Anchorage, 10 a.m.; Tim Robb of Fairbanks, 10:17 a.m.; Anna Bondarenko of Chugiak, 12:22 p.m.; Tony Blanford of Fairbanks, 1:25 p.m. In Summitt Lake: David Milne of Two Rivers, 12:02 p.m.; Dan Dent of Baltimore, 12:17 p.m.; Mike King of Salcha, 12:27 p.m.; Gus Guenther of Clam Gulch, 12:34 p.m.; Rick Wilson of Copper Center, 12:55 p.m.; John Bramante of Kasilof, 1 p.m.; Tony Blanford of Fairbanks, 1:25 p.m.; and Larry Carroll of Willow, 1:30 p.m. Out of Meiers Lake: Andrew Lesh of Fairbanks, 2:54 p.m. In Meiers Lake: Caleb Banse of Fairbanks, 9:05 a.m.; Kevin Kortum of Spartanburg, N.C., 9:30 a.m.; Edward De La Billiere of Willow, 9:40 a.m.; and Eric Nyholm of Hope, 1:50 p.m. Scratched: Braden Bannett of Whitehorse, Yukon Territory; and Bruno Baureis of Gakona. |
©2000
Anchorage Daily News