Husky News

Higher fee this year hasn’t decreased the number of competitors.

The entry of a pair of Belgians has brought the field for the 2008 Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race to 90 mushers.

The latest mushers to sign up — Dries Jacobs and Sam Deltour — are rookies, according to the race committee. They join 27 other rookies and 61 veterans registered for the March race.

Further entries are expected, but dropouts are likely too. Pre-race entries approached 100 for the March race, but by the time the race left Fourth Avenue in downtown Anchorage the number of racers was down to 82. Rookies, who must complete long-distance qualifying races before being allowed into the 1,100-mile trek to Nome, face particular hurdles in getting to the starting line. But sick dogs, lack of training or a simple lack of money can detour any entrant.

Veteran mushers say it costs at least $30,000 to run the race and considerably more to run it competitively. Rookies usually pay upwards of $50,000 to train with an experienced driver with trained dogs and to acquire the use of some of those dogs to race.

Putting on the race is equally expensive. Iditarod officials calculated it cost $23,020 per musher to stage the event this year. That price tag that was part of the reason the entry fee was nearly doubled to $3,000 for next year — up from $1,860 in 2007.

Some wondered if the big jump would discourage some mushers, but the large early signup indicates those concerns were unfounded. Though the race continues to be dominated by entrants from Alaska, there is a growing international presence.

So far this year, according to race officials, the Iditarod has entrants from Canada, Norway, Germany, Italy and Belgium.

They join five Iditarod champions entered so far:

• Defending champ Lance Mackey from Fairbanks, the only musher ever to win the Iditarod and the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race in the same year;

• Rick Swenson from Two Rivers; the Iditarod’s only five-time winner;

• Jeff King from Denali Park and Martin Buser from Big Lake, a pair of four-time winners;

•2004 champ Mitch Seavey from Sterling.

Entries for the race officially close at 5 p.m. AST Nov. 30.

Source: Anchorage Daily News