Newton Marshall Preparing for 210-mile race, March 27-28, 2008

Newton has been training his team since November and it looks ready for The Percy. Newton's main leader Felix will not be running, he is out of the race due to a pulled hamstring. That is a set back because Felix is a double Golden Harness leader - which means he won the Yukon Quest twice in lead. He would have had absolutely no problem leading a winning team across the finish line in the Percy DeWolfe. So it's too bad he's gone, his enthusiasm and skills will be missed.

Newton started with a pool of 14 dogs and aside from Felix he has lost one other to injury so he still has 12 dogs to choose a 9 dog team from. I just asked him who he's running with and he said that a small (35 pound), 3 year old white dog with black eye lashes and blue eyes, named 'Killer', is taking Felix's place. She is a young leader and will run lead with Mona, an 8 year old veteran leader.

In swing will be Nell and McKinley. Both have come in first place in the Yukon Quest and know what they are doing, and Nell can lead if she needs to. Behind them, the first team dog is Einstein running solo without a partner. I confess that he was in fact in Hans' Iditarod team this year, he is a bit of a ringer for the team. But was dropped due to the hot weather on the trail and he doesn't deal with heat well. Frazier and Sly will be the pair of team dogs behind Einstein. Einstein is running without a partner because this is a 9 dog race and he is the best to be alone. He tends to intimidate his partners unless it is his old buddy Wyatt, who barks right back at him. Wyatt is in John Stewart's team though.

Newton's two wheel dogs, Eastwood and Redford are huge strong dogs. They look like a pair of horses.

We have a couple dozen plastic bags of dog food stacked in the feed shed ready to be packed into the dogsleds, plus the cookers, jackets, snacks and personal gear. Right now I'm looking out the window and Newton is brushing snow off his sled with a hand whisk. That is TOTALLY unneccessary but kind of cute to watch. Now he's lining up the velcro on the top so it zips up perfectly and there he goes, walking it over to the garage to put it inside. He's taking good care of the equipment and sleds.

I just had this email interupted by a phone call saying that we have two rooms at the Aurora Inn in Dawson City. Also we are getting emails from other mushers asking when we are heading up the highway. It is a 500 km drive and there will be at least 11 teams driving up from Whitehorse, no doubt we will see each other on the mostly empty road.

Just about all the teams in this race are from extremely competitive yards, (including Newton's and the three other teams going from here), but there are a few less competitive yards going up too, such as Simi Morrison. Simi moved here from East Germany a few years ago and is just getting her team together. She has run a few 200 and 300 mile races but is still considered a new comer and a rookie. That goes to show you what Newton is up against seen as this is his second race ever, and his first race was only 30 miles on a great trail. This trail is different. I was going to skijor the race but the ice is too difficult this year so I am taking a sled.

We're all restless to load up the trucks and getting driving to Dawson.

Bye for now, Susie