Iditarod Part 2

In part 2 of the Iditarod conversation, join Scott, Ben and Kurt as they highlight some of the aspects of the race that set it apart from any other sled dog race on the planet.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to car Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio's
How Stuff Works. Hi, and welcome to car Stuff. I'm
your host Scott Benjamin, and I am another host, Kurt
garn And we have a third arm in the room,
and that is that's true. My name is Ben Bull
and I am I am a Coco host here I believe.

(00:22):
And this is part two of our of our two
part series on the I did a rod the race,
not the trail. If you have you're just tuning in,
now do yourself a favorite hit pause. We'll wait and
listen to part one of the series, wherein we dive
into some of the history, a little bit of the

(00:43):
nuts and bolts about the race, and then only then
push play on this one because now the rubbers hitting
the road, or I should say the rails are hitting
the snow. Yeah, oh thank you. Yeah. Stayed up pretty
late working on when so I'm glad you guys can
find you guys are into that. Uh. Today we're going

(01:05):
to dig into, i would say, some of the science
behind the equipment, a little bit more about the race itself, uh,
and of course the lovable, hard working dogs that make
the entire thing possible. The race itself. When last we
left Scott you were telling Kurt and I about the

(01:25):
two different routes and we were talking about why these
might change or alternate from one year to the next.
Let's let's pick up there. Because there are checkpoints for
the roots. That's how how the race works. Every team
has to hit certain points along the trail. There twenty
six checkpoints on the northern route on the southern route,

(01:49):
and when people hit those checkpoints, the mushers have to
sign in, they have to give throw their John Hancock
on something. This has a couple of different functions and
so if we're guessing, one would be of course safety
make sure that no one disappeared or something bad happened,
and to of course to prevent cheating, to make sure
that no one just tried to hot rod around, you know, uh,

(02:12):
and and somehow take a shortcut and they have to
sign in with their dog. Like the dog team that
they've got ploint of slide at that moment, because they
do begin to drop dogs as we go through this race.
So they start out the race maybe with twelve dogs,
and then they drop down to eleven dogs, and then
ten and then nine, and then eventually by the time
they get to the finish, they might be down to
as few as what six seven, eight eight dogs maybe,

(02:34):
um and Tosh, is that correct? That might be five
five cross the line. You're right, and these dogs are
all of course, well we can talk about the care
of dogs too, but um, the dogs are. When I
say dropped, I mean that they're you know, either carried
back and handed off to a handler that you know,
travels along with the race along you know, alongside of
the team. Um, not not during the race itself, obviously,

(02:58):
but they go from town to town in a much
more efficient way and meet them there, or they have
them in place ahead of time. And you know that's
a dog that's worn out or injured or you know,
whatever the case. Maybe it just needs a break arrest. Yeah,
they right in the sled. Yeah, that's right. That's that's
part of the benefit of some of the different sled
designs is that they can carry dogs that are somehow
in need of that to the next checkpoint and safely

(03:20):
deliver them. Yeah. Good musher is like a combination cartographer, sledder,
dog trainer, veterinarian, right e n T. At some points,
you know, oh yeah, they wear many hats, and they
have they think that's important. They have drop bags that
they pick up at checkpoints, and these drop bags have

(03:41):
supplies that they use right to to replenish their stores
of food. But there's also a lot of stuff for
the dogs involved. Yeah, that's part of the equipment right now.
That's another thing that I learned at that that camp.
We talked to a guy that was the guy that
was kind of running our dog sled that you know,
the wheel one that we're talking about. I'm this is

(04:03):
a long time ago, I think in The name that
popped in my head immediately was Mars, and I thought, okay,
who's Mars. There is a musher on the iditorad named
Wade Mars, and his his um career span is just
about the right time for when this was. So I'm
assuming that the person that I met and talked to
with Wade Mars. I'm sure that it was Wade Mars,

(04:23):
because it just popped into my head right when we
were talking about this. But one thing that he told
me that just stood in my head for for a
long time. In fact, I'm still thinking about it. The
dog booties. The booties that the dogs wearing their feet
and you think, oh, that's kind of funny. That's kind
of very Hollywood, right. You know, they're wearing little dog
shoes around. You know, it looks like something a little
poodle would wear on, you know, um, Rodeo Avenue when

(04:45):
they're shopping. It's not that way at all. These are
for These are to prevent um, you know, injuries from
ice and rocks and you know, things like that that
they might encounter on the trail or abrasions. Um. It's
these little sacks almost as they put on and they're
held on with is it leather or velcrow or something
like that, right, just just like little socks they put
on every dog's foot and of course they throw these

(05:08):
off while they're racing, whether they're running. So these guys
will go through the the mushers will spend a significant
amount of money on dog booties every year in the
training camp in you know, the race itself and other races,
you know, qualifying races or whatever, you know, because the
idea route is not the only race they're gonna be
in dog race for the year. That that's just not
the way it works. But they will go through. They

(05:30):
buy thousands of dog booties every year. For every team,
which I thought was incredible. Thousands of dog booties every year.
It's got to be a huge expense. Yeah, because you
think about it, you can't just if you want them
to be comfortable, you can't just give them those dog
booties during the race. They have to wear these weird
paw shoes during training as well, so that it becomes

(05:53):
a normal customary thing. And you know the supplies that
you were talking about that their ship to each checkpoint.
There's limits on this, but I think, and I'm pretty
sure that I read this in the rule book. I
can verify this in just a little bit when you
get to this, but I think it was like sixty
pounds per package is what they what they send, and
that's like it's dog food. That's everything that they need.

(06:14):
The musher needs. Of course, because they got to carry
everything with them, they'd be self sufficient. Um. But the
dogs eat a tremendous amount of food and it's this
really high energy. Um I don't I don't know what
they put in it to make it so high energy.
I'm sure's a lot of protein, probably a lot of fat,
if I had to guess, because they're gonna be burning
so much energy. But a lot of this is dog food. Now,
imagine that you've got to ship sixty pounds of supplies

(06:37):
to twenty six or twenty seven different checkpoints. That that,
right there is a pretty huge logistical nightmare. Yeah, and
gets expensive quickly. That is a lot of that's pounds
of stuff that you gotta get ready ahead of time
and know where you're gonna need it and make sure
it's there. Yeah. And they are already carrying gear with
them that stays with them the entire time. Headlamps for

(07:00):
night travel, tools and parts to repair of sled. Can
you imagine how terrible batteries of course for the lamps
and and you know nowadays people are carrying radios with
them and you know, maybe they're listening to their favorite podcast.
Yeah they probably, yeah, maybe they are, Maybe they are. Uh.

(07:23):
The interesting thing is this reminded me a little bit
about some of the restrictions placed on long haul truckers. Uh.
Every team has three mandatory rest they have to take
during the iditar Rod and this is in the rules.
It is, yes, yeah, they have to take it. Is it? Well,
there's a twelve hour laver and then there's a twenty

(07:45):
four hour layover. Is that right? Well, there's a twenty
four hour layover that they can take at any point,
at any checkpoint. It's a strategy game. Yeah, they decide
when the dogs need it, when they need it, what
the weather is doing. All that that plays into when
they take that twenty four hour break right, and then
they have two mandated eight hour layovers they have to take.

(08:06):
One is at any checkpoint along the Yukon River, and
then the one that never they can never move is
the eight hour stop at White Mountain. Okay, So there,
I think you make a fantastic point. There's Scott. With
the flexibility of those two other places, there are there

(08:26):
ample opportunities to uh, to give yourself that last burst
of energy to recover from a particularly arduous leg. But
there are also opportunities to fall behind. Because what if
you are in the lead, you know what I mean,
And I don't know whether this has ever happened, and
you're like two checkpoints away but you haven't burned your

(08:49):
twenty four hour layover yet and you have to sit
there again. I don't know if this has happened, but
can you imagine like you have to sit there for
some reason and you're watching there, watching the four number
two and the former number three, neck and neck, and
you're thinking, maybe I should ask him to pause for
like twelve hours. Yeah, you don't have like that pause

(09:10):
button for them, right, I mean, it's only your your own,
your own account. And you know, I think I said
twelve hour lay over a mistaken You're right, it was
eight hours. But yeah, that's gotta be frustrating to have
to take that time, that downtime for some of them.
Others might wish it was more, and I think others
do take more. It's all up to you. It's just
how quickly do you want to finish this? And this
is a race of days? And you know, it's not

(09:31):
like a race of you know, hours and minutes. It's
a very long drawn out process right where you have
to play the long game. I mean the long game.
We're talking more than a week. It's a it's a
long it's a long journey from Anchorage to Nome. And they,
I mean they have to kind of account for the unforeseen.
Maybe that's the way they have to do it. So

(09:52):
if you take that break early on, what happens if
there's a blizzard, you know, up ahead that you don't
know about her, you're not aware of that's it's on
its way that you know, suddenly cuts your visibility to
zero and you know the temperature is eighty below zero um,
that's fahrenheit. That's not well, I guess would be worse
for celsius. Right, Oh, maybe it's not that bad then, right,

(10:12):
eighty blow fahrenheit. That's if there's ad blow Celsius. Look out,
that's like, that's like you're on neptune or something. No,
I'm just kidding that, but I mean that's a really
important point though, that people there are three mandatory minimum
layover times, but anything can happen, so people end up
taking extra time. This is like this like pit strategy

(10:35):
and racing right or refueling strategy or any Every race
has its own strategy and how people like to run it,
even like horse racing or something like that. You know,
like you do you hold back and then give it
the all out there at the end of the last
stretch or do you just consistently go or you know,
how do you do it? How do you play it?
Do you sand bag and then uh or at the
end um or just just go for it right out

(10:55):
of the gate. I mean, it all depends on the horses.
I guess it depends on your team, your dog team,
and your ability. You know, you're you know, you know
how how much you can take. And again this is
a true test of human endurance as well. Um not
many people are are fit for for a trip like
this really when you think about it, I mean, I
get cold walk into my car right now. It's the

(11:15):
mid it's mid thirties here in Atlanta, and I don't know,
I guess I've become kind of a weather wimp, you know,
like it's cold, it's colder at night, you know, I
gets down to the twenties, I don't want to take
the dog out to go to the bathroom out in
the backyard or something. It's uncomfortable. I don't want to
be uncomfortable anymore. And look at them there, I mean,
really blizzards eighty they I think they've recorded temperatures as

(11:39):
low as one hundred below zero. And that's that's wind chill,
of course, windschill. But have you ever felt like forty
below zero? Uh, you know, wind chill. It's it's awful.
Like they tell you not to expose your skin to it.
They tell you that you can't go outside of Man,
are you not supposed to breathe? It's it's forty below
is cold meth. We've talked about the Midwest and like

(12:00):
I remember, my dad went out to his older cars
that had you know, vinyl seats, and you sit in
them and they crack all the hell. It's like you
broke a chocolate bar that's been in there for a
freezer or something. You know, It's like it's like that.
I mean, it's that brittle. So can you imagine what
a hundred below feels like? And they really do race
through that. It's it's insane. I feel it feels like,

(12:21):
you know what I would do it to say that
I had had that experience. What if it kills you, well,
then I won't get to say that I had that.
Ben had one third of that experience and that's when
and that's how it ended for him. We would be
left to spread the word have been You're gonna say

(12:41):
his ashes on the Wow, this escalated pretty quickly, guys,
But let's let's stay with the trail. Let's let's talk
a little bit about this because we know that it
can be dangerous. There have been canine deaths, especially, A
lot of the rules are focused on safety. Those those

(13:05):
layovers are not just to make things interesting, you know
what I mean? Uh, this is I believe, as as
we said at the top of part one, this is
an incredibly brutal experience, right, Definitely, it's a race of endurance.
There's a lot of factors that go into being a
top performer versus being just one of the people that

(13:26):
are there to finish this. This race we keep saying,
a test of endurance or physical challenge, or you know, whatever,
however you want to label that you were this The
idea will routinely come up on lists of the ultimate
tests of human endurance of how much can a human stand,
whether it's heat, cold, time, you know, whatever the case
may be. And there's a lot of absurd world records

(13:48):
that people have said that are tests of endurance, and
I don't need I don't think we have a chance
to go into all those, but that the contest, the
test that the people routinely do year after year, those
are the ones that I find probably the most interesting.
And I did a ride. It happens to come up
on every list that I looked at so far, and
a couple of them, just so you get an idea
of what is on these lists. There's there's the Race
Across America UM, which is a bicycle ride that goes

(14:12):
across the United States all the way across all three
thousand miles and it's essentially like a they call it
a like a one leg bicycle race. It's it's just
this intense right across the United States. As fast as
you can go, people do it and something like I
think the maximum you can do it is in twelve days.
The person who has done it the fastest was like
seven days. Can you imagine riding your bike in seven

(14:34):
days from coast to coast in the United States and
we're talking, you know, again, over three thousand miles in
that this in that time UM. That was back in
two thousand and fourteen. There's the Marathon de Sable, which
is happening or Sabelle and I don't know Sable in Morocco,
and uh, that's the one that you have to be
entirely self sufficient. It's an ultra marathon. The first race

(14:56):
was held in and it's essentially a race across hot sands.
I mean it intensely hot sands. You're racing across the desert,
and then that's that. Um, you know, these are really
really dangerous. There's Ramsey's Round in Scotland. There's the Iditarod Trail,
which we've been talking about all day. We can you
can find out the details, and that there's something called

(15:17):
the Jungle Marathon that happens in Brazil, which I think
is really interesting. And one thing that okay, this is
the last thing I'll mention about this endurance thing, but um,
maybe for now. UM. They at one point that they
pointed out in this National Geographic article that I was reading.
He says, the winner of the two thousand fifteen race
is um named Thomas Witwick of Germany, was stung by

(15:38):
a sting ray before the race even started, and then
he went on to win in forty hours and ten minutes. UM.
This is a race that has running at forty degrees celsius.
I don't know what that temperature is, but it's hot.
It's the jungle, um humidity. It's a hundred and fifty
eight mile course that goes through um and of course, uh,
you know, swamps and rivers and steep descents, trails, beaches, climbs,

(16:02):
there's it's just crazy. Of the people drop out ever
before reaching the end just because of exhaustion. Did you say,
did you say forty degrees celsius? Four degrees celsius. It's
a hundred of four degrees they're running and what essentially
is an ultra marathon. I guess in uh a hundred
it's a hundred and fifty eight miles through the jungle
in Brazil with you know, they say anacondas they've got

(16:24):
piranhas in the rivers or jaguars in the trees. Different. Yeah, exactly.
I mean the winner that year in two thousand fifteen
got stung by a sting right before the race. And
still I mean, that's that's nuts. So yeah, these these
testsain endurance, like they're not for the faint of heart.
And the Iditarade is something that just when you when
you ponder what it takes in your head to to,

(16:45):
you know, take off from that start line and know
that your destination is a thousand miles away through that territory.
It's it's pretty shocking. Most people who perform well in
the Iditorade are from northern states in the United States,
are Arctic states. Yeah, something you have to kind of becca, Yeah,

(17:05):
are we gonna have like a like a cool Runnings
kind of moment? You know, Oh yeah, you know Jamaican
team is going to show up there in Alaska and
well maybe not when, but it's fun doing stuff. Relay
team go up there and do it. Yeah, you have
relay teams and I did Rod. I know you have
to be a single single it has to be a

(17:27):
single musher and the team is already signed up ahead
of time and the team. Oh that's another thing. That
dogs are all chipped, and of course there's careful veterinary
care along the way. You know, beforehand, there's all the vaccinations,
there's everything that they need to have for the medically
is done ahead of time and during the race and
then after as well, they after care sure when they

(17:47):
make their stops, they do during those stops. The chipping
is important because that shows that you're not swapping out
dogs that you know, weren't there at the beginning. You
know exactly who's who when they get because it's tough
to say like, well, of course that's uh, that's my
dog milky way there. You know that's happened before and
that's why or whatever. Yeah, I mean, that's another fight.
Look at the list of names of the dogs on

(18:09):
the teams. They're all pretty funny. But but imagine you've
got a name, you know, twelve dogs a couple of
times a year, you know, yeah, litters of dogs that
you then select your best team from, you know, the
training camps. And so when I was there, they were
naming dogs like by groupings. Like they named them, uh
like fashion names or you know, it could be like
Nike and Adidas, and you know, like that's the names.
Like they kind of run out of names. They can't

(18:29):
name them like here's you know, Ben Scott and Kurt
it's they do, but um, you'll run out. So they
were naming them like candy bar names, and they I
don't know, they come down to like star names or whatever.
You know. It's it's like grouping, so it's easier to
remember them all. Um, but imagine you have to name
like thirty six dogs a year. That's hard. I used
to I used to volunteer at this animal shelter, and

(18:52):
the one thing that irked me about it was a
great place. Um, then support your local animal shelter. The
one thing that urged me about it was that someone
had this prestigious job where they would name animals and
they were just terrible at it. Now, you know, it's
a person who had been working there for years, so
he's trying to be fair. And I was thinking, you know,

(19:13):
maybe at some point this person just ran out of names.
It's like, I don't think this cat's name should be umbrella.
But look, I just volunteer here, you know what I mean.
I think that's gonna come back to haunt the cat whatever.
But cats don't care what their names are. The kaiser
say thing, Yeah, yeah, yeah, Let's talk about the dogs

(19:46):
a little bit more, and then let's talk about the
actual sled sounder. Yeah of course, all right. So there
are several types of dog breed that are used. Pure
breads are common in the most northern reaches of the hemisphere,
you know, a Samoyad, Siberian huskies and so on, and
Alaska Mala mutes would be another one. But most racing

(20:07):
and sled dogs are a mixed breed called Alaskan Huskies.
About ten the breeds like ten thousand years older. So
according to um I did aad sources, it's not an
officially recognized breed, but they're known for a couple of things.
They're known for having very tough feet. They're also known

(20:28):
for having a good weather proof coat, and they're known
for just loving pulling sleds as I've seen, I've witnessed it,
and it's weird because, you know, for a lot of
people who criticize the practice of dog sledding, you know,
like Peter and folks of that nature, and even people

(20:50):
were unfamiliar with working breeds of dogs, it may seem
incredibly cruel, but it is also a natural inclination. It's
kind of like, have you guys ever seen hurting competitions
with working breed dogs. It's really weird because their natural
inclination seems like such a specific behavior. Any living creatures

(21:15):
natural inclination to be finding a herd of sheep or
something and then just like not attacking them, just walk
making them go weird places. That's to me, that's weirdly specific.
That's also something that these sorts of breeds seem acclimated
to doing. Have you ever been around a dog that
is a hurting dog that is not anywhere like anywhere

(21:36):
near a farm. Yes that it was born hurting dogs,
but born like maybe in the city somewhere and you
you know, you you take it out to the park
or whatever, and that dog will show hurting characteristics, will
trying to hurting traits, trying to kids. They will, they
really will. I mean, it's I've seen it with my
my brother in law's dogs and uh and they do

(21:57):
this and they have never ever herded sheep as far
as I know, or cattle or you know, whatever. They heard.
They just want people to move together. They do. They
want it's like they want order and they're gonna make
it happen, you know, that's what. It's just little dogs
and it's like, what are you what are you doing?
You're trying to force me to go the way that
you want me to go, But they do. It's it's
just it's completely instinctual in these dogs, and they do

(22:19):
get excited about it. Like you said, it's not it's
not what people think. I mean, I I guess I
had my own preconceived ideas that you know, this is
a little bit mean to make these like, these dogs
aren't gonna pull seven people in these sleds, or even
one person or a thousand miles on the sled. They're
not gonna like that. But when you see the excitement
and the and and the energy that they have, they're
just jumping all over each other to to pull that sled.

(22:41):
They want to go, they want to run, and they
really do. And if you don't buy my version of this,
go online to any of these training camp sites where
people have gone and had the same experience and read
the comments. They'll say how excited and and just pumped
up these dogs are about running and the and how
much they love doing what they do. They really enjoy it,

(23:03):
and it's it's such a foreign idea to us because
we think, oh, that's mean making them pull people around,
and you know there's these toys. It's not to them,
it's it's sometimes bred into them and they love it. Well,
this is a race, but we have to remember this
race only exists because dog sledding was the primary means
of transportation for a lot of people. So if people

(23:25):
object to the race, that's totally within the right to
do so. But even abolishing this particular race would not
abolish the practice of dog sledding because for some people,
even today, it's a better means of transportation. And with
these dogs also depend on what side you see about this.

(23:46):
It's no secret that the endurance test, which is punishing
to human beings, to the mushers, is also punishing to
the canines. So yes, over the years, I think as
recently as a few years back, uh, five dogs had
died in the course of this. And those kind of
deaths are you know, some of those things that can't

(24:06):
be predicted very well. Diet, as you mentioned, is huge.
These bushers are dedicating a lot of time to taking
care of their dogs. Uh So they even even that
high energy density food they get, they supplement it with
They add water, meat, fat, vitamins, even digestive enzymes to

(24:26):
I guess, take the inner work of digesting, smooth it out,
a little bit less work that their body has to do,
and they could focus more energy on running. Really yeah,
and you know, when the more I read about these
dog teams, the more I was You guys know, I
love comic books and comic book movies. My girlfriend says
it's because I have terrible taste, but whatever, uh whatever.

(24:49):
As I was reading about the composition, the position and
the roles of the different dogs, I felt more and
more like I was watching when of those films where
there's a heist crew getting together in the movies and
then it's like, oh, it's you know, uh, that's uh
slippery Jimmy he's the safe cracker and scumbag Pete he

(25:12):
drives to get away from. And they got their own specialty. Yeah,
they know their specialties, right and uh. And the dogs
are like this too. There are the lead dogs. Because
you'll notice when you see the dogs do have certain rules.
The lead dogs understand these different commands that the mushers
make and they respond. And I think, um, we had

(25:35):
talked a little bit about some of those commands off air.
You mean like g yeah, yeah, Hall means left turn,
and Jeeves out said, you know, I gotta be honest, man.
If I'm on the sled and we have to take
that right turn, I'm just gonna start yelling right and

(25:55):
dogs will be like the scott guy's in the amateur
I thought they just like cracked the whip and y'ell
mush right right. That's what I see in every cartoon,
and I mean that's that's you know, well, I've seen
it on many documentaries. I guess there's this one documentary
Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. Yeah, yeah, there's a there's
a prospector who has a team and uh, Cornelius I

(26:17):
believe is his name. Do you remember that the doctor
they did this is like like y R yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
He would flip his you know, pick X in the
air and then pick it up and like it kind
of licked the end of it and decide if there
was gold or silver there. Yeah, he's a good guy.
Those uh, those claymation, those claymation features from you know,

(26:38):
the fifties through the seventies. Some of them are pretty intense.
Even watching them again as a kid, I thought, you know,
my parents were letting me watch this three. I love it.
You You've gone soft, Ben, I've gone soft, and I
need to take an identarade trip. Yeah you get back.
You know, it's weird because some of these dogs also

(27:02):
are considered not the lead dog. And I didn't think
about this for some reason. I always pictured the dogs
being like raised together and trained together. But some of
them are at different levels of experience and familiarity. So
dogs that don't understand the directions that just like, who
is this Kurt Garing guy yelling g at me? Uh?

(27:24):
Those dogs you would think or put towards the back right,
but not really. Some dogs have not learned these commands,
but they're still used as the lead dog because they're
especially good at discerning trails even when it's blown over
with snow. Because the good folks at the Identarods are
are pretty transparent. They say, you know, we will go

(27:46):
and break the trail beforehand, but due to weather, we
can't guarantee basically that you're going to be able to
see the trail itself. Try to put up markers, but
it's on you. So there are dogs that specialized just
in finding that trail, and directly behind the lead dogs
are the point or swing dogs. They're essentially backup leaders,

(28:09):
second in command. Like if the lead dog is Captain
Picard in Star Trek, then these are the Lieutenant Rikers.
Does that work? You've lost me? Yeah? Yeah, I was
attempting in Star Trek man, I'm I'm I'm out with
Star Trek. I'm not a Star Trek fan. Yeah yeah, yeah,
I never happened. I never claimed to be. I think
on the show we've talked about that man, or maybe

(28:30):
it was a Jonathan Overn tech stuff. It sounds like
more of a conversation he and I would have. But um,
are you big star trek fan? I mean, I I
like the idea, but I'm not gonna go. Uh yeah,
I guess so was a bunch of fan of other
something about you, Kurt. I never got anything. I just
thought of something. You know what we're talking his space?
The Final Frontier? Right, yeah? Yeah, Alaska, the last Frontier. Yeah,

(28:53):
isn't it the last Frontier? And they referred to it
as the last Frontier? Yeah? Okay, well there you go.
That's the tie in. There you go, there we go,
we start it all. We made it so sort of
so right, So we're on the sled right right in
front of the sled. The dogs directly in front of
it are called the wheel dogs. Traditionally, these were the
dogs that were on the larger side. The average weight

(29:15):
of a dog there, most of them is going to
be between forty five and fifty pounds. Um. The wheel
dogs are gonna be on the bigger end because they
helped provide that initial power. They're bigger dogs. Yeah, would
you say they're a little husky? Oh man, I have
no regrets. That just came to me was reading the

(29:38):
tag on my jeans. Husky. It's weird because off off Mike, Uh, Scott, Scott, May,
Kurt and I be quiet for a second, and we
we just sat here awkwardly in silence for eight minutes.
That hopefully got cut was Scott ran and got his
post it note with that joke on it. Uh just

(30:01):
all relied on you saying bigger dogs. That's all talking
about the fat dogs. I should have got there earlier.
But yeah, so we've got the dogs. What about the uh,
just real quick way, what do we know about this?
The sleds. The sleds are relatively fascinating. Your modern lightweight
racing sled generally weighs about twenty to thirty pounds that's
nine to thirteen point five kilograms, and um most sleds

(30:24):
are made of ash lash together with leather or nylon,
though there's a trend to start to make the sleds
out of more composite materials, which I'm surprised that that
hasn't taken effect sooner. I bet it's I bet it's
much more common in competitive sledding, competitive events, you know
what I mean. I mean, that's a traditional sled that
we're talking about, right, The ash wood that's lashed together.
I think it's the one we've can all picture too.

(30:46):
Is that, you know, the typical wooden sled and geez,
I mean to be honest, to twenty to thirty pound sled.
That's not bad. These are big. These are big items.
They're they're not small. They have to carry all the
gear that you know we've talked about. And there's a
couple of different types too. There's the toboggan style. I
think most people can picture a toboggan with kind of
the open design. I suppose that's what you said. And
then there's the other type that's the basket style, and

(31:07):
that's one that has more of a nose cone look
to it, like a nose cone of a plane or something.
And uh, and that one, to me, that makes the
most sense for this type of race because I've I've
read that you know, in uh, really really bad weather,
um or maybe not even and just just normal weather
they're in Alaska, Uh, the musher can then take their

(31:27):
sleeping bag and tuck that inside the basket and sleep
in there and use it as a tent almost, so
that's where they sleep. The dogs, of course, have their
own natural protection against weather. And the elements like that.
But and they do carry straw and things like that
for them to bed down on at night for the dogs.
But um, a couple of different designs are possible. And
you know, we've we've seen other designs of sleds too.

(31:48):
I mean there's the real, real simple ones that look
like um, you know, the old old style stadium chairs
that look like um uh, look like folding chairs almost.
There wouldn't very very simple to designed, very very small,
look like match sticks almost. You know that they built
this chair out of there's that kind I think I
can't remember the name of it now, but it's a
very small sled, very short. It's just two skis and

(32:10):
a seat in front basically, and the musher will stand
behind the chair with their hands on top of it
and that's where they guide it from. But lots of
different types of the dog sleds are possible. But these
racers have to have some common safety features too, right,
So when I saw at this this camp was the
emergency break, which surprised me, right, because the dogs, the

(32:31):
dogs will take off on their own and pull the
sled to the next location. They've got some kind of uh,
well you know I said, they love to to run.
They'll take off without a musher and go the full
distance they'll go. They'll go to the next town unless
they're caught without the musher, and that's happened before. Right.
You know, they have to send out a team, you know,
on snowmobiles or snow machines to go out and rescue

(32:53):
the sled. I guess from the dog teams running away, right.
And this foot break that they have, think of it
like a series of laws put activated clause. They also
have a problem the metal claw, which is called a
snow hook that can temporarily keep the team station. That's
the emergency break that put the hook. And the hook
looks like, um, something you'd catch a whale on or something.

(33:13):
It's it's this massive dual claw thing that when the
dogs pull, they actually pull it deeper into the ground,
into the snow or the ground or whatever. It's um
it's very effective, but it looks like this massive, massive
hook thing that has to hold back the entire team
of dogs. The one that you're talking about is the
it's called a drag mat and I thought this is
very clever of them. It's if you can picture a

(33:35):
piece of conveyor belt that is flipped upside down with
like you know, the the ridges for the conveyor belt,
the rubber conveyor belt. Maybe it's you know, two ft wide,
whatever it happens to be. The span of the skis
hangs down in between the driver's feet. As the riding
they can you know, raise it and lowered if they
want to, But all they have to do is then
kind of step on the mat to kind of feather

(33:57):
the speed because you actually the dogs are going so
fast you have to slow them down and not necessarily
stop them every time. You can hurt them if you
stop abruptly, or if they're trying to take a mountain
pass and the dogs are pulling too fast and you know,
I think they're gonna go over the edge or you're
i mean down going downhill too, I would imagine the
sled picks up quite a bit of speed run up on.
You know, you want to keep the tension right. A

(34:18):
very good point. Yeah, And they said that you know
you can even drive um, you know, nuts and bolts
through that matt to add kind of some some biting
strength to it. Uh. There are other types of breaks
that that can be used but they are not necessarily
favored on these types of sleds because a lot of
the racers will race in the same path as the
person in front of them. It's like a warm path.
And if you use a different type of break that

(34:39):
operates where the rails are, where the skis are, you
will leave deep ruts. Then that the next rider will
have to have to deal with, you know, where um,
the sled will bottom out or it will you know,
lurch to one side or the other, depending on where
the break was. So these drag mats seem to be
the key and the whole thing. Pretty smart, smart design,
pretty smart. And there's another thing. When we talk about design,

(35:00):
it's not just the design of the sled itself. We
shall also talk about the design of the race, which, yes,
I do mean to refer to the rule book that
you mentioned, Scott, she read the whole thing. I looked
at it. I didn't, That's all right. I read some

(35:21):
parts more closely than others. About did you read did
you read any of the rules at all? I haven't
read the rules, okay, so I don't know why I
found this interesting. I I thought I was going to
be bored to death with the whole thing, right, because
it's fifteen paid as the rules about a dog sled race,
and I'm not a dog sled racer, I'm not a musher. Um,
I don't have much to do with it other than
we were doing this podcast I started Scott, that's right,

(35:45):
me and Smokey eunuch. So anyways, I um, I kind
of looked at it. I started to look at the rules,
and I got more and more into these rules because
there's some really obscure, odd rules in here and very strict.
They're very strict, and of course they're all serious, they're
all and some of these rules are just so out
there compared to different races and things that were more

(36:07):
accustomed to around here, you know, and in other races
and other parts of our life. But it's just real briefly,
I mean, the rules are fifteen pages long, and you
can search this online if you want to look at
them for yourself. There amusing and interesting and you know,
informative and all that. It's worth, you know, ten minutes
of time just to scan them, if nothing else. Just
search for I did to ride rules and it'll come

(36:28):
up with a full final list rules. Just to give
you an example, like a lot of them are about
the mushers themselves. A lot of them brought the equipment,
the sleds themselves. There's a whole group of rules just
about the treatment of dogs, and those are like rules
number thirty eight through forty eight, and they're thirty seven
through forty eight, and they're all kind of clustered that way, right,
And I mean these include things like you know, the

(36:48):
dog care and the and the food shipping and all that,
and the amounts and you know, the requirements for shots
and all that stuff. Very important rules about the dogs
of course, and the and the mushers and you know
what they're allowed to do, what they're not allowed to do,
even to ring and things like that. On the trail
um there were some really fascinating ones. And I chuckle
about a couple of these, but you really shouldn't. I mean,

(37:08):
some of them are again dead serious and there's reasons
behind this. But one of the funny ones that came
across initially was a rule number thirty four. So if
you look at rule number thirty four, it's about the
killing of edible game in that you you're it's necessary
in order to protect your life or your equipment or
your team or you know, whatever whatever that happens to
be your your life or your property. I guess in

(37:29):
defense of that, and it has happened on the trail before.
The fact is that when this race is run in
March of every year, there's a lot of snow up there,
and of course as a lot of snow, and that
will often force the moose out onto the trails which
are less wooded, and it's easier for them to get
around to forage and to you know, just just to
get to a point A to point B for the moose. However,

(37:52):
you come around a corner and there's a mad moose
in front of you, they start charging your dog team,
which they do. They get angry. There have been time
in the past. In fact, I think the first woman
who runs who uh no, and I'm sorry the second
woman woman to win the race in nineteen I want
to five missed it only missed the wind in the
previous year only because a pregnant moose was around one

(38:16):
of the corners that you came around, and it charged
her team killed two of her dogs. That the moose
did injured another one and another writer eventually came upon
them This is like twenty minutes later came upon them
and shot and killed the moose. Then there's a rule
in the in here, this rule number thirty four, about
what you have to do once you kill the moose.
This is interesting. Let's walk through this rule thirty four,

(38:38):
not the famous Internet rule thirty four, which we won't
mention because this is a family show. Uh. Rule thirty
four for the iditarod is is the following killing game animals.
The event that in edible big game animal i e. Moose, caribou,
buffalo is killed in defense of life or property, the
musher must gut animal and report the incident to a

(39:02):
race official at the next checkpoint. Following teams must help
gut the animal when possible. No teams may pass until
the animal has been gutted and the musher killing the
animal has proceeded. Any other animal killed in defense of
life or property must be reported to a race official,
but need not be gutted. Interesting, Now, what other race

(39:23):
have you heard where that is one of the rules.
You know what, it's probably gonna be in there that
someone will bend that rule this year. Right? So no, really,
that's an odd rule, right? I mean, so I read
that and I thought, well, there's got to be more
in there. There's gotta be other things like that. But
the reason that they do that, and if anybody out

(39:43):
there is confused, it's because it's edible meat. And so
that you know, the nearest town of the nearest community
will be able to come out, you know, via radio
and know where it is and on the course come
out pick up that you know that now gutted and
be able to provide to the community. They'll give it
to those who need, you know, those who need it,

(40:04):
and whether that's sharing it among you know, the townsfolk,
or you know, and they know of a family that
needs meat for the season or whatever, that's what the
reason is behind that. So you know, if it's another
type of animal that you know, is not a game animal,
not not one that people eat, and you still have
to do that. The gutting rule, I guess doesn't apply
to that animally, just you know, the caribou, the moose,
and it was an elker, whatever that was. But I

(40:26):
thought that was an interesting rule, and there's there are
several others that are similar interesting items, maybe not quite
as obscure as that as that one might be. But
a specific rule. Number sixteen is a mandatory items list
that the mushers must carry, and and that's important. I mean,
everybody has common sense, you know, about what they need
to wear, you know, the number of layers, the type

(40:47):
of jacket or gloves or whatever. But this one has
mandatory items that you have to carry in order to
be cleared for um, you know, for for competition. Some
of it's basic and some of it's pretty impressive. So
of course the sleeping bag duh, yeah, but with a
minimum weight right right, minimum must weigh five pounds minimum,
and an ax uh snowshoes specific dimensions for those any

(41:12):
promotional material provided by the race organization. Eight booties for
each dog in the sled or in use, so it's total,
so they need at least four that they're wearing at
all times, and a backup. So you got twelve dogs,
you need eight booties for each dog. Do you can
do the math, But that's a it's a lot of
booties to carry around initially, and then that number declines

(41:35):
of course as you go through them and drop off
dogs and things like that. And then if this was interesting,
this impressed me a veterinarian notebook because when you get
to the veterinarian checkpoint, you have to have It's essentially,
you know, like if you're a responsible car owner, you
keep a repair log and you have your mileage and
you have the you know, like your yearlies and all

(41:55):
that stuff, your thirty care or whatever. Uh. They kind
of have that for the dogs, right, which I thought
was responsible. And then they have to have dog coats. Uh.
They they've got They've got several specific things here. I'll
tell you one thing that I was curious about that
I didn't find out until I went to the rule
book was well, you know, I'm a cheap skate. Ever

(42:20):
since we did this, I'm still I'm still really a
cheap skate. It's impairing my relationships. But I looked into, uh,
I looked into how much it would cost to get
going right, not counting equipment, not counting dogs. Dogs are
the biggest expense. Equipment is a second right. The entry
fee alone is four grand. It's pretty expensive. It's just

(42:44):
it's not I'm saying this because we need to establish
This is not a thing where you can just like
fly up a few weeks before March and say, you know, hey,
how much is a sled going around me target or something. Uh,
you have to it, you have to. That's four grand
if you submit before December two. After that you have

(43:08):
to pay an extra nonrefundable fee. So it's eight grand,
eight thousand dollars just just to enter. That an extra
four grand. Yeah if you go late yeah and yeah
yeah steep it is a steep late feet and really
when you think about how much it takes too. I
mean a lot of these you know runners at the

(43:28):
Wade Wade Mars, the guy that I was talking about,
he runs his own kennel now, so he has, you know,
the dogs on his property that he has grooming for
this whole thing. And of course there's gonna be you know,
speaking engagements that they can do and make a little
money here and there. Last I heard, the payoffs weren't
terribly great compared to what you invest in order to

(43:48):
run in this race because the sleds are expensive. The
equipment is expensive. We all know. I mean, try to go,
try to buy a really nice jacket, just asn't a
simple example, just one jacket. Yeah, that's a expensive item, right,
so you're gonna buy that. You gotta buy you know,
the all of the gear that is arctic gear, you know,
stuff that's I mean, we're talking really really heavy duty

(44:09):
camping gear for for you know, the coldest temperature you
ever you've ever felt in your life. And keep the
dogs healthy, You keep the keep the equipment in operation,
keep all you know, make sure that you have all
these things shipped. You run a team of people you
know that are at different checkpoints to help you along
the way and to pick up dogs and to transport dogs.
And it's just the logistics of this race are mind boggling,

(44:33):
you know when you think about what it takes to
put it together. And it's not something that, like Ben said,
you can't go there a couple of weeks ahead of
time and expect to enter the race. This is something
that you get ready for gears in advance, plan for
train for you have to qualify for UM. You have
to get another musher that is already you know, a
veteran musher to write a note of recommendation for you

(44:54):
as somebody that they trust if you're a rookie UM.
You know that's part of the rules too, that you
have to Yeah, you have to to take a drug
test thirty days before your dogs have to take a
drug test during the during the competition as well at
at points when they decide when they determ So no random, yeah,
like any athletes. Yes, you're not gonna have You're not

(45:15):
gonna have a chance, you know, to warm up with
some brandy along the course there if you want to
do maybe you can have a tiny little bit of brandy.
But that's about it. And they check the dogs as well,
and it's completely random. They may say, the first grouping
of fifteen mushers that enter this town, we're going to
test all of them, you know, with the spit test
you're in, test of blood test, to hair test, whatever
it is. We're gonna test the dogs. Or they may

(45:38):
just randomly select one person. They may it's it's really
as they see fit. I guess when they do it. Okay,
So that's where there's oh man, that's another thing, you know,
the drugging of dogs for added performance. That's that's another rule,
which is rule number happens to be number thirty nine.
I believe of the substances that you had talked about before,
you know, no diuretics, no muscle relax just for the dogs.

(46:00):
Thing that can suppress signs of illness or injury. They will. However,
I thought this is interesting. Let them use steroids on
their paws, a certain type of steroids that are approved
through the through the medical office. They're ahead of time
the veterinary office uh for injured pause so that they
heal quickly, because you know they do. That's they're taking
a ton of abuse on that On that course, you know,

(46:22):
the ice and snow and rocks and all that. You know,
the debris is there. Uh, and the dogs are evaluated
pretty thoroughly by a veterinarian before entering the race. There's
one other drug they're allowed to use, uh for an
estrius suppressant. It's called ovavan is the U it's super creative.

(46:43):
Well it gets kind of specific, right yeah, yeah, yeah,
I believe that drug is specifically meant to keep the
dogs out of heat. Oh, stay focused on the race,
on the mission. Stay focused. Dogs stay focused. So Uh,
it's strange because like many like many other uh competitive
sports or other races they did have in the I

(47:05):
did rod a bit of a doping scandal in recent
years because there were some dogs that tested positive. Well,
that's why they're pretty specific about it, right, And what's allowed,
and if you look at the list, it does have
the uh, the feeling to me that like every year
that list probably grows a little bit like someone tries
something new, you know what I mean, Like they detect
something that is somehow an enhancement to that dog's energy

(47:28):
level or the the oxygen um you know, carrying capability
of the blood level and that dog, you know that
type of thing. It's just like you said, it's like Nascar,
the way that Nascar changes every time. Also, one thing
I love about really specific rules like this. Anywhere you go,
whether it's a department store or whether you're putting together furniture,
and look at the instructions there. The weirdly specific stuff

(47:50):
always tells a story between the lines, you know what
I mean. Like even when you see those bizarre laws
that are still on the books in different U States,
it's like, imagine you're putting together a couch and it's like,
all right, step four attached the joist from point A
to the uh you know, to the this part of

(48:12):
point B. And then like the next step is like,
under no circumstances, attempt to entirely eat joist and digest them.
Uh if if you do so contact medical professional immediately. Uh.
Please note that the joist should no longer be considered usable. Uh.

(48:32):
Please see Appendix A for full details. And you're like, oh,
eight part of this, you know what the equivalent of
this is here in the office, Like if you know,
suddenly an email comes out about something that you've just done.
You know, yeah, you burn you burn something in the toaster.
It's like, you know, and an hour later the email
comes out to everyone, you know, for all the future

(48:52):
users of the of the toaster, you know that type
of thing. You know, so um, you know exactly there's
there's one person that has has screwed something up in
case that rule to be enacted. Unfortunately, if you go
down a couple of rules farther down to forty two,

(49:14):
there's a rule about expired dogs, as we talked about before,
and then the treatment of those and what has to happen,
and just so everybody is aware of this, when a
dog does expire on the trail, which does happen, um
and for for whatever reason they determine the reason, they
do a quick UM. I don't think they call it
an um. An autopsy is called like a necropsy. I
think or something like that. They run that they have

(49:35):
you know, veterinarians check it out. They do the blood
samples and everything. The musher is held in the next checkpoint,
you know, after the dog is delivered, you know, unfortunately deceased,
to figure out exactly what happened, to find it, to
determine if there is any abuse that was there, or
drug overdose or you know, whatever happened to that dog.
They find out the cause of death and either um,

(49:57):
you know, either pull that musher from the competition if
there is something suspect in there, or they allow the
musher to continue if it's deemed as you know, a
natural death, if something an unpreventable hazard enacted. So yeah,
it's a it's a hazard of the race. And I
mean it does happen. It does happen. You know, someone
will point to a human marathon and say that if

(50:17):
we had deaths in this human marathon at the rate
we have in the I did a ride, would have
a big problem. Right if if people were dropping in
the Boston Marathon or the New York Marathon like they
do in the IDDA Rode. And it's not like dogs
are dying every year by any means, it's just it
happens occasionally, and it seems like for a couple of
years there was a like a grouping where it happened often. Um.

(50:39):
But anyways, that's something you can investigate on your own.
But um, there is a rule about expired dogs and
about you know, what has to happen there. Unfortunately, it's
it has to be there, it has to be there.
But also it's uh, it's prefaced with the iddar Rod
holds firmly that no dogs should suffer harm or death
in connection to the race. And it's good that they
have a process in place to make sure that there's

(51:01):
not some unscrupulous musher out there. Absolutely, but you know
what you talk to, you know people that do this,
and they they love their dogs. I mean they are
they're they're part of their family. I mean it's now
they really do they love these animals. So um, anyways,
that's well, we'll move on past that. There's another couple

(51:22):
that I want to mention here that I think we're interesting.
There are rules about passing which I thought were interesting.
That's ruled number twenty six passing. There's some interesting right
of way type situations that happen where you know, if
somebody is approaching you from behind, you need to let
them pass, and there's a certain amount of time you
have to wait and before you retake the trail, and
you know that type of thing. So there's passing rules
if you wonder how that works. So they're not getting

(51:43):
next to each other and you know, like trying to
knock each other out of the way like had Max
style or something. I'm not saying that doesn't happen. You
know that there's not somebody out there that's doing that,
but do you think they would be reported and the
next you know, the next checkpoint of course. Yeah. The
way it works is if someone's coming up behind you,
they can say get out of the way, and you
have to you have to stop your team and you

(52:05):
have to hold the dogs for sixty seconds or until
the other team is passed, which ever happens first. That's interesting, right,
But the team that gets past can't repeat that action
until at least fifteen minutes have expired. So you gotta
stay behind the team that passed you for a minimum

(52:26):
of fifteen minutes and then get out of the way.
Then get out of the way. Well, you got that
sixty second breaks. You got all that energy, right, you
can you can last past them, right. I wonder if
dog dog slads don't have rear view mirrors. So I
wonder if it's sort of a surprise when someone y
else behind you. I don't know why that sounded so profound.
That sounds like what you're talking about with the lead

(52:47):
dog thing earlier. That sounds like something I would see
on a bumper sticker. And it's like dog SAIDs don't
have rear view mirrors. It's not really a life lesson.
It's just that's just a fact. But it sounds like
about something it could be. You know, I'm gonna work
on that. There's got to be something that works, okay.
And the last one that I wanted to mention, the
last rule um and of many many rules in this

(53:09):
book um are is number twenty three. There's something called
the Good Samaritan rule. And the Good Samaritan rule is
pretty interesting to me, Ben, I don't have it in
front of me right now due to a computer failure.
Rule number twenty three. The Good Samaritan Rules states that
a musher will not be penalized for aiding another musher
in an emergency incidents must be explained to race officials

(53:31):
at the next checkpoint. I love this rule. You know
this this goes back to you and I talking about
how we would occasionally, and I guess i've we've slipped
out of this, but would help someone somebody, you know,
with the tire, a roadside assistance, you know, like of
of another citizen. How that's kind of gone away. Now
we don't necessarily do that anymore here and there. Maybe yes,

(53:52):
you know, in certain circumstances, but the good Samaritan rule
ensures that you know, someone's stuck out there in the
wilderness with a broken uh you know, dog sled ski,
or you know they're having a trouble of some kind,
or you know, a moose situation, who knows, whatever it is,
the good Samaritan rule comes into play that you have
to aid the other, the fellow contestants, the fellow mushers,

(54:14):
And I think it's a great rule to have. I
mean that you know, you can't just ignore them and
leave them out there, because in this case, you know,
you ignore them, there's a good chance they might die
out there. Yeah, the whole team. I mean, it really
could happen. There have been no human deaths that I
know of to date from nineteen seventy three until present.
A few dog deaths here and there, but no human deaths.

(54:35):
And I think the Good Samaritan rule probably has a
lot to do with that, being, you know, just helping
out your fellow man. It seems like that's just the
right thing to do. Anyway. I think most people would
do that regardless if there was a rule number twenty
three if there wasn't, so, I guess the accumulated total
time kind of the time clock stops when you stop
to help someone. So before this rule, I mean, I
would imagine that maybe the drive to yeah, and I

(54:58):
think it it might come to in a position to
you know, the one coming to the aid, yeah, is
not penalized a position versus the other one, because I
think when they, you know, if they get back on
the trail, maybe they determine how, you know, what the
gap should be in that type of thing. So without
knowing the specifics of every situation, you know, it's tough
to say, but I think that they're just generally, which

(55:19):
is nice to say, they're generally fair about things, which
is good. There's an etiquette to this to the race, yeah, yeah,
And uh, and a bit of um, you know, I
mean they're women, and women participate also, but it's kind
of a gentleman's rule. Well, there's not any um, there's
chivalry to it, right, and there's there's not any I
would see. Most of the people racing, they're not there

(55:40):
to become millionaires off of it. They're they're racing because
they enjoy the journey and they enjoy the competition. And
part of the competition is a really enjoyable competition has fairness. Oh,
this is a generational thing too, right, I mean, well,
if you look down the list of winners from nineteen
seventy three till present, you're gonna find that a lot

(56:02):
of these, uh, the winners of the Idea Rode are
either you know, I think there's a father's son, there's
the brother. There's a lot of brothers and even sisters
that you know, have raised and um, it's just it's
a it's it's fascinating to look down the list of
repeat winners and see who's won, you know, three, four
or five times. It's kind of interesting. You know. Then
there's always going to be the first, you know, like

(56:23):
the first father son you know, uh, years apart obviously
or maybe the next year or whatever. But then you know,
the first person to win two in a row, the
first person to win three in a row, um, you know, repeats,
the first woman, the first uh whatever, you know, there's
always first of everything. This is one of those sports.
You It's interesting to me about this, this type ration
is it's one of those competitions that probably will never

(56:45):
have autonomous vehicles involved. There probably will not be uh
electric electrics sled race there probably there there are, but
it won't be the idea rode and then probably won't
be you know, a computer at the other end of
the sled that's yelling. It's you know. Before we finished
this up, I want to point out that what do

(57:06):
we say that the first race was one and it
was like it was like twenty days, that's right, yes,
twenty days and some out hours, and we were gonna
we were gonna tell our listeners how that how that
time has been cut down and cut down and cut down,
and of course it's incremental, right, twenty days, zero hours,
forty nine minutes and forty one second. Okay, so twenty

(57:27):
days is how long that first first competitor was out
there and all the teams behind him, and that was
that was the fastest. Everybody else is out there a
lot longer, right, Okay, So in I only have the
numbers for number seventeen. Actually, you know what, I shouldn't say.
I only have the numbers. I have the course record
which was broken in ten and nineteen didn't produce the record,

(57:49):
didn't break a record, but seventeen. Uh, the winner was
a guy named Mike CV, and that's the musher and
Mike CV. I think he's a repeat winner too, he wasn't.
This is at first first win. Get this, Ben and
Kurt get this. Eight days, three hours, forty minutes and
thirteen seconds. So they have cut down from twenty days

(58:12):
down to eight days, and not even not even like
eight and a half days. It's like just over eight days.
So that's unbelievable to me. I mean, how do you
cut that much off of the winning time in order
to in order to break the right? I mean that
that is a shattered record right there. But I know
that over the last well, gosh, how many years is
that now? It's forty plus years, right, forty six years

(58:33):
now that they run this thing. It's gone down slow,
you know, slowly. The course record is then, you know,
nineteen days, eighteen days, you know, it jumps down like that.
But to get from twenty to eight that's pretty remarkable. Really,
something's up? I mean, is it better dogs, is it
better sleds, is it better mushers? Is it faster snow?
The weather? It was a southern route because it was

(58:54):
an odd number year, right, Yeah, so maybe the route
has some sort of role. Um. Yeah, I don't know,
it's over the years. In the big picture, it's probably
just the stature of the event and the way that
people approached it probably just got more and more competitive
as as things now. See. I buy that too. I

(59:15):
think that you know, early on, um, you know, I
think that it was like we're all going to do
this and it's going to be a good time. But
no one is like, you know, training in the off
season in order to lose weight in order to make
their sled lighter, and no one is you know, looking
at alternative materials for their sled, and they're not feeding
their dogs, you know, like super high energy food and
the right types of medical drugs that they can give

(59:36):
their dogs that you know, help them to grow bigger
and stronger and you know that are still legal, you know,
for the dog race, their dog sled race. But it
seems like, you know, people get more and more competitive
about things, and I think money is probably a bit
of a driver because there is a bigger personnel than
there ever was. You know, it really wasn't a race
about money to begin with, was it lifestyles and established sports. So,

(59:57):
I mean people make their living doing this s these
types of races. I'm sure that plays into it. Yeah,
I just I mean, I know that people start to
take things more and more serious. But it's kind of like, um,
I see this. I guess a correlation of this is that,
you know, we talked about how hard it is to
you can't just show up and do this. There used
to be there are some types of auto racing that

(01:00:18):
you could do the same thing for right, you can
just show up and race and you know, you pay
your entrance fee and you've got the same equipment as
you know the semi pros do that are already there.
Everything seems to go this way, seems to get this
way that you know, then if you don't have you know,
now you're at the point in a lot of series
where if you don't have two million dollars to start
and and eight cars you know in the in the garage,
You're not gonna be able to do it. And it's

(01:00:40):
in a way simpler for the dog's letters to compete,
but it also takes more time and more preparation and
more understanding of what it was all about in the
history of in order to to do this. I think
it feels like we could talk about this all day, really,
I mean, how these different shades of gray I guess
of of why people do it and how they get
better at it, and and I don't know, because you

(01:01:01):
can't ride moose. Let's be honest. Dogs are great. Would
you want to see a moose race? I would want
to see a moose race? I really would. I would.
I would they? Would you wear a saddle? Not you?
I mean, I mean with the moose wear a saddle? Uh,
that's the thing. Apparently I zoned out for a little
bit because I was thinking about this, and I just

(01:01:22):
checked on it off Mike, and apparently it's very difficult
to ride moose. They don't care for it. Yeah, they're
pretty big, Yeah they're they're they can be angry too.
From what we've heard in the in this did I
tell you? Yeah, I went. One of the things I
was doing when I was up in Alaska is I

(01:01:42):
interviewed a lovely lady who uh in her she was,
she's retired, she's elderly now, but even just a few
years ago, she actually got in one on one fight
with a moose that was attacking her husband. Well she
a dog there too, that was trying to chase the

(01:02:02):
moose off. But she had to grab a shovel from
a pickup truck and just start wailing on it. And eventually,
I think, I think the thing is the size difference
was so big that eventually the moose just became inconvenienced
and then decided to leave. You know. Yeah, I was
just like, well, this is not what I signed up for.

(01:02:24):
This is and we've all been there, you know what.
That's how I am with laundry. I got it. I
wonder what the moose is going after her husband for
though I don't know, but a mad moose is a
very dangerous thing because, you know, occasionally when they perceive
humans as threats, their initial like any wild animal, their
initial idea if they think you're a threat, is going
to be to either is to flee, but then the

(01:02:46):
second option is to fight. So moose are giant, you know,
they're huge. Camping and Clarney, Canada and uh, when we
were headed to go camping and Clarny, Canada and it
was it was probably around early and we're headed up
and this is in like north of Michigan in Canada,

(01:03:07):
and uh, it's pitch black. It's night. We've been traveling
all night and now we're in this man event. It
was in Ford Arrow Star, so back then, you know,
revenans minivans. So we're up kind of high and we're
on a gravel road, no lights anywhere. It's pitch black.
My friend Mark slams on the brakes and we skid
pretty significant distance. We were going too fast, but we
skidded along long ways gravel and there we are eye

(01:03:30):
to eye with a baby moose and it's big. I
mean it's like it's seven ft tall. You know, if
if it felt like it was seven ftall's probably six
feet tall. But um, it had you know, the nice,
big wide body, you know, like the big fat belly
and everything. It's just what you would think, you know,
like a baby. But it's clearly a baby, gawkish, awkward.

(01:03:52):
It's like the legs shouldn't hold them up. The body
is really big and their heads big and you know
all that, and it was it was an awkward looking animal,
but it's very calm and it just it just kind
of stared us for a few seconds and we were
all catching our breath looking at it in the headlights
and just walked away. That's just strolled off to the
side of the road. But we were lucky not to
hit it because I think we would have done significant

(01:04:13):
damage to the car. Oh yeah, last moose story. It's
just something I've heard, so Alaskan residents right to us
and let us know if if you've run into this before. Uh.
I heard that people in in Alaskan towns around Halloween
have a problem with jack Landern's because the moose love
to eat pumpkins. So you'll carve a pumpkin and put

(01:04:35):
it out and then some moose will come by and
just sort of like lazily, uh, jaw on it. You know,
what are you gonna do? They like pumpkins. How far
are you willing to go to protect that? Don't don't
push too don't put too much time into the carving
of that pumping, And I guess that's what you're saying, right, Yeah,
because you know what they say, guys, dog sleds don't

(01:04:58):
have rear view mirrors. No, stop working. It feels like
it's supposed to be, you know something. Maybe we'll figure
it out. But that's the idea. Rod. Yeah, there's there's
a lot to it, isn't there. And there's probably a
lot more than we're talking. We just scratched the surface,
I believe, I think so, you know, we just we
just pawed the snow. But I I am fascinated by it.

(01:05:23):
You know, the three of us have been fans of
the outdoors. Um temperature dependent, right, Scott, No, it's getting cold. Yeah.
Uh And I I for one, would love to would
love to travel back up to Alaska, maybe in March,
to just at least see the launch because they launched
from Anchorage. Yeah, that would be cool. Yeah. How about

(01:05:45):
the finish, I mean they have We didn't talk about it,
but there's a listeners can check this on their own.
But there's the borroled arch that they cross underneath. Yeah,
there's a whole history behind that, and that's a pretty
fascinating story. Too, but we didn't have time next time.
How's that for a tease? Right? Wait, wait, don't have time?
Maybe don't have time. But they're looking to look up
the burled arch with the the Idea Rode and there's
a story behind that and the original arch that was

(01:06:07):
destroyed and now they've got a new one and it's
really cool and maybe we can see that someday. Who knows.
I mean, Atlanska is not like it's not impossible to
get to anymore, right, pretty easy? Yeah, I think so. Yeah,
unless something happened while we were in the studio. You know,
flights daily. You can take a cruise there, you can
drive there. I guess Kurt he's a bicycle or he
could bike there. I'm sure he could. He's got a

(01:06:29):
durance So so, uh, we want to hear from you
have Are you someone who objects to the Idea Rode
because of maybe concerns about the animals. Are you someone
who supports this competition or you someone who has participated
in the Idea Rode or any sled race. If so,
we would love to hear from you. You can find

(01:06:51):
car Stuff on Facebook. You can find us on Instagram,
you can find us on Twitter, we're car stuff all
one word or something, you know, derivation thereof. You can
also find every single episode that Scott, Kurt and I
have ever done on our website, car stuff show dot com,
even even the first ones. Do you haven those first ones? Scott?

(01:07:12):
And those were ugly? Boy? Yeah, I shouldn't have even
said that on it might have said this one was ugly.
But you know what, I think that we're getting better
as as time goes on. We're like a fine wine then, yeah,
you know, age like wine, not like milk. Well, when
we look back, you know, in our in our dog
sled review mirrors, well we find that the early episodes

(01:07:34):
were a little tough going. They were they were a
little forced, um, but we got there right. Yeah, I
think the throughout our career with car stuff, you guys,
we only have one episode that we were ever recording
that we decided not to publish. You remember that way,
I do. I can't believe you're bringing that up right now. Yeah,
it's true, though I will never divulge what that is.

(01:07:54):
Uh yeah, I'll tell Kurt later. He doesn't know. Uh
so let us know. We hope you enjoyed the this episode.
We hope you tune in for our future episodes. No spoilers,
but we have an episode about spoilers. I'm kidding. We
don't have an episode about spoilers yet. It's this huge
treasure true of topics we want to cover, so we

(01:08:15):
also want to hear from you if you have suggestions
for topics you feel that your fellow listeners would enjoy
in the future. And thanks for listening everyone, We'll see
you next time. Car Stuff is a production of I
Heart Radios How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from my
heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

(01:08:35):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.