IditaProject Forum

I am truly honored and pleased to announce 4-time Iditarod Champion, Jeff King, is our next guest musher in the Ask the Musher series! Jeff won the Iditarod in 1993, 1996, 1998 and 2006 and has been in the "Top 10" 16 times. He also has over two dozen first-place finishes in other races all across Alaska, including a victory in the Yukon Quest in 1981. He finished 2nd in the All Alaska Sweepstakes last March.

Jeff and his wife, Donna, an accomplished painter, and their three daughters live on Goose Lake in Denali Park where they own and operate their own kennel. Their Husky Homestead is home to approximately 75 sled dogs. It is open in the summer (mid-May to mid-September) for tours.

Please visit Jeff King's website and blog here: http://www.huskyhomestead.com/index.htm
You can purchase his book and other merchandise through the "Store" link at the top of the homepage.

Welcome Jeff!

4-TIME IDITAROD CHAMPION JEFF KING
W/LEADERS SALEM & BRONTE
Photo by Peggy Fagerstrom

JEFF KING - 2006 IDITAROD CHAMPION Photo by Jan DeNapoli

JEFF KING - 2008 BOOK FAIR Photo by June Price



JEFF KING - ALL ALASKA SWEEPSTAKES Photo by Jan DeNapoli

JEFF KING - ALL ALASKA SWEEPSTAKES (COUNCIL, AK) Photo by Jan DeNapoli

D. MACKEY & JEFF KING (2002?) Mr. Mackey's first name is a blocked-out word on this site - it comes out like this: "****"! Sorry! LOL Photo by June Price

JEFF KING - IDITAROD '07 RESTART (Video) Courtesy of Larry Taylor Jr



All photos used with permission.

Jeff. Great to have you with us.
Let's get right to it. What were your feelings REALLY when Lance pulled his dastardly trick at Elim?
Were you upset? or do you take a little pride in knowing that the younger racers may have learned a trick or two from
the master?

Also, how important is it for you to catch up to (and pass) Rick Swenson for that 5th and 6th win?

And this vitally important question from a fellow mustache wearer - You always have such impressive icicles hanging from your mustache every year. As a matter of fact I believe your mustache icicles are the best in ALL of Iditarod. So have you ever measured the longest? Any records? Inquiring minds want to know!

M G F Brian

LOVE the icicle question, Brian! LOL!

Jeff, thanks so much for taking the time to anwer questions. I have just one - I always enjoy your antics that are written by the media along the trail. What can we expect from you in that respect in the future?

Welcome Jeff -- how exciting to have you on our forum.

A few years ago Cabela's opened a new store just down the road from Austin, in Buda Texas. When they first announced their plan for a store, I started lobbying for them to bring Jeff King and the Cabela's Iditarod display to the store to share that part of their product line with us Iditabuddies in Texas. They declined, very politely, since they thought there would not be much demand for sub-zero outfits and arctic sleds in Central Texas. We're great customers for their hunting, fishing, camping products, but we don't have much demand for Parkas.

They probably made a very good business decision, but we missed the chance to host you and to hear about your Iditarod experiences directly and personally. Now we have the opportunity to visit with you in the BSSD forum. Thank you for giving us this time and energy out of your precious preparation schedule.

You (and Martin) had a very different strategy than Lance and Paul in scheduling your 24-hour layover while running the southern route in 2007. Without revealing any strategic "secrets", I am wondering whether you are thinking of perhaps running a little further down the trail before "resting" for this next race, and if so how that may be reflected in your training sessions and the selection of the members of your team. Lance and Paul seemed to have more energy running up-river on the Yukon after laying over in Iditarod.

Thank You again for your time. I have already placed you on the top of my Top Ten Picks for this year's race. I believe this will be number 5 for the King.

TXbennett

Thank you so much for being here and agreeing to share your knowledge with us. I have a couple of questions:

1. Did you enjoy the Discovery filming or was it a bother? Do you think it portrayed the events accurately?

2. What do you think of the Satellite Tracking with ION Earth? Does it give an unfair advantage? Does it matter?

Thanks in advance for your answers.

Jeff, thanks so much for coming on our forum. I loved your book. I have both the audio book and the print copy, with Donna's awesome paintings. The way you wrote it--with each chapter telling a separate story--works very well. I was sad when I finished the book because I wanted it to go on forever. I have a couple of questions about the writing process:

1. How long did it take you to write the book?
2. Did anyone help you with it?
3. What was the writing process like? How did you come up with the ideas? How did you organize your thoughts?
4. Do you have any plans for a sequel?

Wow, just wow....thank you for joining us here, Jeff. There are so many touchpoints between you and Donna and my DH and I...he's the innovator, problem-solver, etc. and I'm the artist....we laughingly say between the two of us we have a whole brain. And your kids involvement, very cool family dynamic. Aannnyyyyway, a couple of questions:

1. What new innovations do you have in the works this year?

2. I totally felt/understood and cringed for the people in the checkpoint and totally felt gutted for you when Lance sneaked out. Was it made more dramatic in the editing process with the voiceovers than it actually felt at the time?

3. Your team is one of the most aesthetically matched.....what is the genetics? How many studs form the basis and what lines are they out of? I love watching your team motor along, they are so beautifully matched. I did keep asking myself if there was one or more dogs you kept in the team that kept the pace lower than it might have been, but.....obviously if they would have been holding up the team, you would have dropped them, right?

Thank you again....keep going for Rick's record!!! You class up the race, you really do!

Hello Jeff, welcome to our forum.

Your wife Donna is a fantastic artist - do you draw/paint yourself?

Some mushers quite obviously like to mush old-school (Nelson sr. once said that if he couldn't stand all the way to Nome he wouldn't go); do you think these attitudes against innovations are halting the progress of the sport?

Thanks for your time and the best of luck to you and your team this coming season.

S. Olsen/Norway

MelanieGouldFanBrian wrote:Jeff. Great to have you with us.
Let's get right to it. What were your feelings REALLY when Lance pulled his dastardly trick at Elim?
Were you upset? or do you take a little pride in knowing that the younger racers may have learned a trick or two from
the master?

Also, how important is it for you to catch up to (and pass) Rick Swenson for that 5th and 6th win?

And this vitally important question from a fellow mustache wearer - You always have such impressive icicles hanging from your mustache every year. As a matter of fact I believe your mustache icicles are the best in ALL of Iditarod. So have you ever measured the longest? Any records? Inquiring minds want to know!

M G F Brian

Yo Brian! I'm a Melanie Gould fan too ~ tough gal, great dog musher. So, the Elim sneaky right off the get go, huh? Was I upset? Yes. Was it a 'dastardly trick' by Lance? No. My mistake. It actually goes straight to one of what I have considered one of my very best ideas concerning Iditarod and that is the 'white noise' I pump into my i-pod allowing me to sleep in a noisy environment. As big as it backfired in Elim in '08, the white noise i-pod combination has actually made me a much better racer allowing me to get quality rest in an area that I could otherwise never expect to sleep. More power to Lance for turning one of my strengths into a momentary vulnerability.
As for question 2, who is Rick Swenson??
Number 3, I have been blessed - or cursed - with the most humongous snot cicles known to man ever since I started mushing. I have noticed it as well and I don't know why.. .maybe it's an excess of hot air. I am not keeping track of lengths, girths, or contents... but I have no doubt that I hold the record in all of those categories.

Tonichelle wrote:LOVE the icicle question, Brian! LOL!

Jeff, thanks so much for taking the time to anwer questions. I have just one - I always enjoy your antics that are written by the media along the trail. What can we expect from you in that respect in the future?

What antics are you talking about?? But I hope that whatever they are, the answer to your question is yes. Life's way too short to get too serious about a dog race.