Alaska News

Copper Basin 300 to begin Saturday

The biggest name in sled dog racing looks to recapture his winning ways as the Copper Basin 300 Sled Dog Race tries to celebrate its 20th anniversary by shaking off frigid subzero temperatures that have gripped the region recently.

Lance Mackey of Fairbanks, winner of the last two Iditarods and last four Yukon Quests, is among the 34 mushers signed up for the first big mid-distance race of the season with an $18,000 purse. The race begins Saturday.

Earlier this season, Mackey lost two consecutive shorter races -- the Gin Gin 200, in which he finished eighth, and the Two Rivers Dog Mushers Solstice 100, in which he was second.

Competition doesn't get any easier at Copper Basin.

Defending champion Allen Moore of Two Rivers is back, along with his wife, former Yukon Quest champion Aliy Zirkle. Moore seems to have a penchant for the Copper Basin, which he has won three times. By contrast, his best Iditarod finish is 37th.

"It's all about the dogs staying healthy," he said by phone as he packed up for the race on Wednesday. "Hopefully, we can get a little bit warmer weather. Up here, it's been 50 below for two weeks now, and it's hard to train."

As defending champion, Moore will get his pick of dogs from the couple's kennel. As many as three-quarters of his starters will be veterans of last year's championship team.

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"The team looks really good," Moore said. "Other races, we mix and match a lot."

Last year, Moore beat Mackey. In 2007, he negotiated his way through a blizzard to top Sebastian Schnuelle, who was second.

Moore attributes some of his Copper Basin success to his ability to run hills, "and there are a lot of hills in the Copper Basin."

But he allowed that mushers face different conditions every year.

"You get to see every type of situation that you'll see in a 1,000-mile race. Mainly, it's the weather. It changes every year.

"One year we had knee-deep snow to go through. Last year, it got to 40 below the last leg. One year, the river was open and it was 25 below and we had go though thigh-deep water. One year, there was no snow and just ice."

In addition to Mackey, Moore will face Paul Gebhardt, a two-time Iditarod runnerup who was eighth last year, Hans Gatt of Whitehorse, who had a career-best sixth-place finish at last year's Iditarod. and Schnuelle, also of Whitehorse, the 2007 Copper Basin runner-up coming off a career-best 10th in last year's Iditarod.

While it's never warm in Glennallen in January, temperatures that dipped as low as minus-45 over the last week are expected to moderate.

The National Weather Service is forecasting a high of 0 degrees and a low of 20 below Saturday night, an increase of nearly 30 degrees. Moore said his dogs will appreciate that.

"I think it will be some kind of advantage if the weather warms up to, say, 20 below," he said. "That won't bother my dogs at all. It's been 50-below up here, so it'll feel like summertime to them."

Over the last two decades, Copper Basin racers have occasionally seen temperatures sink below minus-50, and it was so cold in 1996 the race was cancelled. That year, the temperature sunk to minus-68 on one portion of the trail, and race officials were concerned about frostbite among the dogs.

"We have a paramount obligation to the dogs," head veterinarian Jeanne Olson said at the time.

Copper Basin board member Doug Vollman said the weather could influence how many mushers show up Saturday.

"We could see as many as 40, or we could see people who couldn't get their trucks started," he said.

After Saturday morning's start at Wolverine Lodge on Lake Louise, racers run through Tolsona Lake to Glennallen. In Glennallen, the checkpoint is at the Hub, the junction of the Glenn and Richardson highways and a good spot for spectators to see dogs and mushers.

The trail then heads to Chistochina, climbs over the Alaska Range, across Summit Lake and on to the checkpoint at Paxson. The racers will cross Paxson Lake and Meiers Lake to Sourdough before the final leg takes mushers onto Crosswinds Lake and to the finish line at Wolverine.

Mushers must take 20 hours of mandatory rest along the way.

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The first Copper Basin in 1990 was won by John Schandelmeier, with four-time Iditarod champion Martin Buser second and the late Joe Redington third.

Reporter Mike Campbell can be reached at mcampbell@adn.com or 257-4329.

By MIKE CAMPBELL

mcampbell@adn.com

Mike Campbell

Mike Campbell was a longtime editor for Alaska Dispatch News, and before that, the Anchorage Daily News.

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