img::rondy.gif
1 Blayne Streeper 1:31:28 1:31:49 3:03:172 Arleigh Reynolds 1:31:30 1:32:20 3:03:503 Jason Dunlap 1:31:42 1:35:05 3:06:474 Bill Kornmuller 1:33:34 1:36:19 3:09:535 Ken Chezik 1:34:45 1:35:32 3:10:176 Jeff King (R) 1:36:09 1:35:15 3:11:247 Marvin Kokrine 1:36:30 1:35:19 3:11:498 John Erhart 1:37:34 1:35:25 3:12:599 Brent Beck 1:36:06 1:37:16 3:13:2210 Egil Ellis 1:34:50 1:44:55 3:19:4511 Will Kornmuller (R) 1:41:22 1:41:32 3:22:5412 Jeff Conn 1:36:25 1:47:24 3:23:4913 Shane Goosen 1:44:55 1:42:19 3:27:1414 Heather Hardy 1:42:38 1:45:11 3:27:4915 Ed Wood 1:44:34 1:43:51 3:28:2516 Gary Markley 1:45:37 1:46:08 3:31:4517 Jack Berry 1:41:11 1:50:43 3:31:5418 Nathan Sterling (R) 1:44:02 1:54:29 3:38:3119 Randy DeKuiper (R) 1:47:31 1:51:26 3:38:5720 Nils Hahn 1:48:20 1:52:39 3:40:5921 Mike Stephens (R) 1:47:52 1:54:57 3:42:4922 John Hanson (R) 2:00:47 1:51:46 3:52:3323 Courtney Moore 1:53:42 2:01:22 3:55:0424 JP Norris 2:00:11 2:10:45 4:10:56 Michael Tetzner 1:39:54 scratch Eddie Dayton 1:56:38 Another epic day here at Rondy. If there is anything to be learned from this race, is that it is won not in the second half of the race, but in the last quarter, and probably even more specifically, in the last couple of miles. The argument could also be put forth, that the last mile can make or break your Rondy. Yesterday’s somewhat surprising 3rd place finisher, Jason Dunlap came out of the blocks strongly again today. He was leading the race by halfway – up on Buddy and Arleigh by a decent margin. But the race isn’t just to the airstrip – a mantra overheard around the dog trucks constantly. As if they were reading from the same game plan, Arleigh and Buddy started to pour some coal on the fire for the second half of the race. First it was Arleigh that jumped out to a pretty good lead over Jason, with Buddy still hanging back with nerves of steel. When the race was about 3/4 through, Buddy just shifted into another gear that the other teams just didn’t have and came home with the winning day time, extending his lead over Arleigh to 33 seconds. I spoke with Buddy off camera this morning and he was very relaxed and confident about his team, “I know it’s not possible to drive this team too hard. They are in incredible shape and have such a strong base of training and racing, their ability and bottom end is amazing. I can ask a lot of them on the street coming home, and don’t have to worry about going out too slow.” to paraphrase what he said. Arleigh also was confident about his team – see video interview. After a few years of chasing the likes of Buddy and Egil, it looks like Arleigh is a serious threat, and here to stay. Jason Dunlap, running a combination of his dogs and the dogs of Joee Redington, is showing good strength, and his maturity as a driver is not to be taken for granted either. The dogs feed off the energy/stress/mood of their musher, and Jason is calm and cool, and I’m sure it translates into his team.John Erhart and Marvin Kokrine had very strong runs today and with good runs tomorrow can possibly be a threat for the top 5.Last year’s runner up Bill Kornmuller is also having a strong race, albeit not like last year where he was leading for 2 days. He is without his main race leader Marvin, who was a strong force in his teams of the past years.Perhaps the biggest surprise of the weekend was the team of Egil Ellis. Coming into the race with what he called, “The strongest team I’ve had in quite a few years,” he scratched after loading two dogs on Saturday, and a very uncharacteristically bad 2 days overall. Egil raised the performance bar of open class sprint racing, but knows when to bow out when there is something wrong with the team, as there obviously is this weekend.Back at the top, it is still pretty tight, and really no room for any big mistakes by any of the top 3. If Buddy has a good run, he probably will take an historic 5th win, but Arleigh is right there to take advantage of any mishaps, and with a strong run shouldn’t be ruled out. Should be an exciting last day of racing tomorrow.Outbound composite of teams:Inbound composite of teams including Kornmuller and Reynolds side by side on the Avenue!Day 2 Reader Submitted Video: