"Mushing 101" Question

[libby the lab]

That was Hank my younger brother who half lab, half golden who did the typing . So I guess that answer means we really don't know who the leader is until they have all made up their times. I see it was 2 minutes between starts. That means they guys at the back will get a lot of time somewhere.
Cindy, Libby and Hank

[oldman]

• There is no time differential, meaning Wednesday’s two-minute staggered start will not be made up.

from the fairbanks daily newsminer

[dilli]

Wow oldman .. I'm really surprised at this news. The same article was posted in ADN too. It was written by Kevin Klott who is doing double duty reporting for both ADN and the Fairbanks News~Miner.

The article link and the entire quote for all to have full contextual understanding:

http://newsminer.com/news/2008/mar/27/m ... eepstakes/

There is no time differential, meaning Wednesday’s two-minute staggered start will not be made up.

“You can’t make it up unless you have a faster dog team,” said Ramey Smyth, who’s serving as the handler for his brother, Cim Smyth. “It’s a bad-luck handicap.”

I wonder if Kevin Klott interviewed Ramey Smyth before or after the mandatory musher meeting.

A half hour's time differential between the first and last team out of the chute could be a crucial component if the race is close.

That's a potentially significant and historic race rule component the officials and mushers elected to suck up and ignore if they decided/agreed by majority consensus to not include or apply the historic AAS time differential rule.

I hope another reliable source or two will confirm this as fact. Until then, I remain sceptical but open minded.
More to be revealed.

[tanglefoot]

seems a shame they wont adjust it, it could affect someones placings if it came down to a tight finish

[oldman]

dilli thank you for correctly putting out that information my computer skills are sadly lacking
i agree with you 100 percent

[flowerpower]

So what happened with the secret checkpoint? That was actually in the rule supplement, wasn't it? Did they chuck that out the window at some point? Now I am really confused....of course, it doens't take much...

[libby the lab]

Me too
Cindy, Libby and Hank

[Daphne in Alberta]

For a $100,000. winner takes all pot it seems unfair to NOT make an adjustment. Maybe the guy writing for the newspaper was reading from the old rules? Interesting twist I must say. And here I've been watching who started when and making allowances.

[dilli]

Dilli general rule of thumb ...take everything issued from media entities with a shaker of salt (for all you Parrothead fans out there) and an pound of patience waiting for additional accurate factual content confirmation from other sources . Especially media content pertaining to sled dog races.

[glengarrian]

I didn't compute all the times but the ones I did for Lance and King's time into First Chance all are elapsed time from their start times, not from 10:00 am 3/26. So maybe they decided to make a time race out of it. Since I'm a newbie that doesn't strike me as abnormal.