Kobuk 440 update 4-9-2007Final results so far – provided by Noah Naylor and dogsled.comMartin Buser has won the 2007 Kobuk 400. Buser was racing to win, and did just that. Buser was followed into Kotzebue by Louie Nelson Sr., and Ed Iten. Results so far (number of dogs):1 Marting Buser (9) 8:04:002 Louie Nelson Sr (9) 8:39:003 Ed Iten (11) 8:49:124 Paul Gebhardt (8) 66:19.295 Gerry Riely (7) 67:25.376 Rayme Smyth (5) 67:45.417 Lance Mackey (6) 68:58.278 Melanie Gould (8) 69:07.379 Hugh Neff (9) 69:14.5010 Ken Anderson (6) 69:32.2511 Noah Burmiester (9) 70:38.2912 Robert Nelson (10) 73:53.57————————————————————————-Gwen Holdmann’s update 4-7-2007Sorry about the lack of reports, but it has been a bit challenging to findaccurate updates on the race. The best information is at www.dogsled.com rightnow. Ken is currently in 10th place into Selawik, approximately 100 miles fromthe finish. However, he could finish as high as 5th by my predictions. Itwill be interesting to see how he feels about that, because as I mentioned inmy last update he was not running his strongest team (in fact, he left homeevery single one of his Iditarod leaders except Talus), and he was alsoplanning on playing around with strategies and run speeds. However, I am surehe had hoped to place in the top 5.Right now, Martin Buser seems to be walking away with the lead, with a 1-2 hourlead on the other teams. There is a close battle for second between LanceMackey, Ed Iten, and Paul Gebhardt. I don’t expect Ken to catch any of them.However, Ken is currently about 1 hour out of 5th place. On the negative, heonly has 8 of his original 12 dogs left. That doesn’t surprise me too muchbecause he had several young dogs in the team and a few that had been sittingoff for a long time with minor injuries.I am expecting the winner to come in at about 8am tomorrow morning, with Kenarriving around 10 to noon.—————————————————————————–Gwen Holdmann update – 4-7-2007I just thought I would give you a quick update on Ken’s progress in the Kobuk440, a 440-mile race held out of Kotzebue each year. Ken is running a ‘B’ teamin the race, and is playing around with some new strategies. In particular, hetends to start races slowly and conservatively to make sure the dogs have a lotof strength left at the end, but he is wondering if he might be a bit tooconservative. He wants to try letting the dogs run a little faster at thebeginning and see how the dogs do.The dogs he is running in the race are: Neo, Solo, Bartusch, Chhiri, Czuy,Talus, Grizzly, Turtle, Ochocco, Enlil, Haiku, and Bene. The race started as amass start today at 4pm, and the teams are through the first checkpoint atNorvik. Most teams run through Norvik to the town of Kiana (about 80 milesfrom the start) where they take their first break. The teams are required totake at least 20 hours of mandatory rest at any checkpoint. Ken is planning totake several 5-1/2 hour breaks, with the first one at Kiana.There are 19 teams in the race, and they were packed pretty closely goingthrough Norvik. The top 9 teams leaving Norvik were:1) Lance Mackey2) Martin Buser3) Hugh Neff4) Ed Iten5) ?6) Louie Nelson7) Ken Anderson8) Ramey Smyth9) Tollef MonsonAlso in the race are Paul Gebhart (second in Iditarod this year) and RickSwenson (5 time Iditarod champ).There is very sparse information on the race, but the best source is the localradio station at www.kotz.org . You can listen to the station streaming on theinternet for free, and get race updates. I’ll do this when I can and updateall of you!Gwen
