Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Can i swear yet? (2) contributed by Susie

MONDAY JANUARY 12, 2009 10:41PM

Josh Cadzow won the Quest 300 last year, absolutely blew away everybody else. When he finished, he was 17 hours ahead of second place, and had made up the 5 hours between the Quest 1000 and the 300 start and was ahead of every single Yukon Quest musher as well! In other words, my guess is that Josh scratched due to the fact that they forgot to put in the next 60 miles of trail. He does not see the point in risking his dogs. Tom Lesatz did what I was talking about with people who short their dogs too much on rest. He ran the first 120 miles with only 30 minutes of rest, tried to make it up by stopping 8 hours, (not nearly enough though he had probably already cooked his team anyway), and then went on to Paxon where he scratched. That's called, "Blowing up your team." Newton is doing the race plan he was given. The trail is a little slower than we expected but other wise he is right on time. Looking at that 14.5 hour supposed run to Paxson, I knew there was something dramatically wrong. I thought he had broken his sled or a dog had died, no kidding. There is just no way otherwise that it would have taken him so long, then when they said he came into the checkpoint one dog short... Susie
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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Susie, Your comments are wonderful.

How close are to Newton? Where are you located? What is your mushing backround?
Where does Newton train?

What is Newton's next race?

Thanks,
Kurt / Alma,Co.

January 13, 2009 at 8:03 PM
susie rogan said...

Hi Kurt, Hans and I share our lives together here in the Yukon, so I am living 'on site' with Newton for the winter. We are just south of Whitehorse, in the Yukon Territory.

I skijored for 12 years and one year ago started participating in the sledding around here. I ran the Percy DeWolfe 100 mile race in Dawson City last year, and that's it for my racing career.

I am running the Quest 300 this year. That's the first 300 miles of the Yukon Quest trail. It is the easiest 300 mile race possible, nothing like the CB 300. When coming from the south, the first 100 miles of the Quest trail is a breeze, and the next 200 miles for the most part is not too bad. From the north, on even years, it is a different story.

I have followed Hans and the other racers closely as they raced the Yukon Quest in 2007, and the Iditarod in 2007 and 2008. Just by doing that and paying attention around here I have learned a lot about race strategy.

How about you? What is your background?

Oh, and as for your last question, Newton is training on the South Canol Road out of Teslin, Yukon, ('JC' is the normal lingo for this particular spot, standing for 'Johnson's Crossing' which is basically a gas station on the highway), and he trains out of our yard near Whitehorse, plus we have a place in Atlin, BC, which is a hundred miles south of here and has fantastic trails through the wilderness.

Susie

January 18, 2009 at 2:01 PM
Unknown said...

Hey Susie,
I just have a correction/comment to make, now that I've seen you post this twice: Although Josh Cadzow did rip up the Quest trail last year and blew away the 300 competition, he did not arrive in Circle ahead of all the Quest 1000 mushers. Dan Kaduce beat him there by about 1-1/2 hours. Brent Sass came in at virtually the same time. Josh actually came into the checkpoint the wrong way (which surprised us, since we were looking the other way, until a dog nose poked around the truck by which we were standing awaiting incoming mushers) and about a minute ahead of Brent, who came in the proper way. So we had teams head to head at the checkpoint. It was pretty funny actually. The reason I know this, is that I volunteer at the checkpoint and checked in all these teams. Thanks for your enthusiasm! BTW, we met at the Circle checkpoint while you were awaiting Hans the last time he ran the Quest.

Lisa in Fairbanks

January 22, 2009 at 9:49 PM

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