NEW TIE-BREAKER RULE FOR 2010 T.T. and ROY PICKS

[MelanieGouldFanBrian]

A Moderator Confab was held recently to discuss fair and equitable ways to break ties in our annual Top Ten - Rookie of the Year Picks. Here's what was decided.

[EDITED (in green) 6/22/09]

NEW TTP CONTEST RULES

1st thru 10th place: 5 pts for each musher among the Top Ten in any position

1st thru 10th place: Bonus pts for picking the correct finisher in the correct position. The higher the finisher, the more pts you get. (In other words, it's worth more to pick the first place finisher than tenth place.) *See chart below

Choose the Rookie of the Year: 10 pts

Bonus Point Chart
1st Place: 10 pts
2nd Place: 9 pts
3rd Place: 8 pts
4th Place: 7 pts
5th Place: 6 pts
6th Place: 5 pts
7th Place: 4 pts
8th Place: 3 pts
9th Place: 2 pts
10th Place: 1 pt

[END OF EDIT]

But instead of using additional point tallying strategies for tie-breakers, which tend to be open to varied interpretation, we have decided to add a new category that will be used strictly for tie breaking purposes.

Beginning next year, everyone's Top Ten and Rookie picks will also include a guess on the race winner's exact finishing time. This would entail guessing the correct Days - Hours - Minutes and Seconds the winner will finish. This year Lance finished in 9 Days - 21 Hours - 38 Minutes and 46 Seconds.

If there is a tie or ties, whoever comes closest to matching the time of the Iditarod champion (whether under or over - just who is closest), is the winner of each tie-breaker. Plus it will be fun to have another category to guess at and to see who comes closest to that time amongst everyone else. We think this will be a better way of breaking ties and being fair to all members who are tied at the end of the race.

MGFB