Alaska News

Kornmuller's team collides with kids, but he keeps his lead

Two hours before Saturday's start of the Fur Rendezvous Open World Championship and miles from the corner of Fourth Avenue and D Street, Jacques Philip was desperately trying to stage his own rendezvous. During a pre-race health check at Tozier Track, four of Philip's dogs bolted across Tudor Road and ran loose along one Anchorage's busiest streets.

"It was quite an adventure," said Philip in his thick French accent. "They went back and forth across Tudor like five times. It was scary."

Philip has been on plenty of winter adventures since moving to Alaska from Paris 28 years ago to learn how to drive dogs. He's a seven-time Iditarod finisher and has competed in several mid-distance races around the world.

In fact, two of his Fur Rondy dogs, Google and Argos, helped Philip cross the Burled Arch in Nome during the 2006 Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.

Regardless, he and his dogs were lucky to survive their impromptu Saturday morning adventure and show up unscathed at the start line for Fur Rondy's second heat.

Philip finished the run 14th to remain in 13th-place overall.

Bill Kornmuller, meanwhile, had another magical run and kept his overall lead after winning the second heat in 1 hour, 29 minutes and 48 seconds. The Willow musher beat two-time defending Fur Rondy champion Buddy Streeper by 40 seconds.

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"Everything was clicking on all eight cylinders," said Kornmuller, whose two-day cash winnings increased to $3,250.

Kornmuller, 55, takes a 2 minute, 11 second lead over Streeper in today's final heat, which starts downtown at noon.

Streeper, who finished third Friday, ran 1:59 faster than Fairbanks' Arleigh Reynolds on Saturday to finish second in the heat and move into second place in the overall standings.

Four-time Fur Rondy champion Egil Ellis of Willow placed third on Day 2, but remained at fourth place overall.

Streeper, 27, lost valuable seconds on the inbound trail after loading a dog at the 20-mile mark and switching leaders three miles later.

He will need Kornmuller to make a mistake if he hopes to capture his fourth Rondy title. But Streeper said his chances aren't looking all that great.

"We'll have to give it our best," he said. "(Kornmuller's) running pretty solid. He's just doing a steady run."

The 12-time Fur Rondy veteran has never won the winter festival's marquee event. If Kornmuller captures today's final heat, he will bankroll $12,350 -- the lion's share of the record $75,001 purse.

He would also become the first American musher to win the 60-year-old race since 1993, the last year Roxy Wright won.

On Friday, when the Saturday forecast predicted snow, Kornmuller said, "Bring it on."

He got plenty -- 7.6 inches by the afternoon, according to the National Weather Service.

Terry Streeper, the father of Buddy, said the last time it snowed during the Fur Rondy race was in 1997 when he finished sixth.

Some dogs seemed to love the powder. Fluffy snow drifts provided the panting canines with a cool mist and a bottomless canteen along the trail. Some quenched their thirst by reaching for mouthfuls of snow while they ran.

And Kornmuller ate crow after he crossed the finish line. The snow he said he would welcome did him no favors -- it transformed Friday's hard-packed trail into a much softer surface.

"I had a tougher trail to run today," he said about leaving the start line last out of 18 teams. "It was just slow."

Kornmuller sidestepped a potential disaster when his 16-dog team bowled over a couple of kids who had wandered onto a portion of the trail east of the Tudor Road bridge.

Kornmuller's team was headed inbound and had just crested a hill when three kids got in the way. All of the dogs scrambled and two of the kids were knocked to the ground.

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"Dogs were everywhere," Kornmuller said. "I said, 'Oh my God! No!' But we straightened out and were good to go.

"We just got lucky."

Philip's luck wasn't so good.

His dog-chasing adventure started around 10 a.m., when he and his family -- wife, Magali, and their 3-month-old boy, Florian -- drove their dog truck to Tozier Track on Tudor Road.

Tozier Track is home to the Alaskan Sled Dog & Racing Association and attracts Fur Rondy mushers because its parking lot is dog friendly. Philip stopped to let his dogs run freely, and so he could check for any injuries.

But Philip's plan spiralled south when a dog named Konga decided to play chicken on Tudor Road.

Three of her teammates followed, along with Philip, who screamed for all of them to get back to the truck.

Every dog obeyed except Konga, a 3-year-old named after the Kongakut River in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

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Luckily for Philip, 52, a cop drove by and stopped to help the frantic Frenchman.

"We had to chase them with a police car," Philip said.

Once he caught Konga, he had just enough time to drive downtown for the race's noon start -- and the his dogs mustered up just enough energy to finish the 25-mile loop.

"They were out of gas at the end," Philip said. "They did a little extra running today."

Find Kevin Klott online at adn.com/contact/kklott or call 257-4335.

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Photos: Fur Rendezvous 2009

By KEVIN KLOTT

kklott@adn.com

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