Beyond Belief -- This is not right!

[Iditafanatic]

I don't know if you've seen the Anchorage Daily News article -- but here it is --
(see below -- after my comments)

Apparently Al Crane has decided what he thinks is good for the race and the rules be damned!
The ADN has gone so far as to say that mushers may have been "duped" by the officials!

Mr. Crane is apparently planning on making up the differentials AT THE FINISH LINE -- is he crazy????!!???

He thinks it's okay to "explain it to them after the fact"?

These are not children. They are grown men with living dogs. You cannot mess around here, and clearly, Mr. Crane has misjudged his power.

When I go to school on Monday, my students will tell me, "You can't change the rules in the middle of a race. That's cheating."

And I will have to agree with them.

Al Crane should have nothing more to do with sled dog racing. Ever. My stomach is turning...

God bless the dogs and their mushers...

FROM THE ANCHORAGE DAILY NEWS :
(here is the weblink: http://www.adn.com/sports/story/358945.html )

CAMP HAVEN - By blowing through this remote checkpoint east of Nome early this morning, four-time Iditarod champion Jeff King appeared to have taken control of the rich, winner-take-all All-Alaska Sweepstakes. But with two other Iditarod champs close behind, the Denali Park musher wasn't counting the $100,000 prize yet.
King, 52, departed here at 1:57 a.m. - only 43 minutes ahead of former Iditarod winner Mitch Seavey from Sterling and 1 hour, 7 minutes ahead of Fairbanks' two-time defending Iditarod champion, Lance Mackey. Seavey had trimmed 19 minutes off King's lead on their way into Council, a village 85 miles from the finish line in Nome
Rough calculations put the winner of the round-trip, 408-mile race on the rugged Seward Peninsula into Nome at between 6 and 9 p.m. tonight. If so, the winning musher would shatter a 98-year-old record held by John "Iron Man" Johnson, who won the 1910 Sweepstakes in 74 hours, 14 minutes, 37 seconds.
As of Council, King has been on the trail 47 hours and 27 minutes. If he matches his outbound time to Council (about 10 hours) and holds onto the lead, he could break Johnson's record by more than 15 hours.
As of 10 a.m. today, however, it all remained speculation. Communications from the trail are poor. Only incoming times for the dog teams are available from ham radio volunteers, making it difficult for spectators - and even race organizers - to know which teams are getting rest and which aren't
Dogs, like people, can't run forever, and getting them adequate rest is key to maintaining their speed to the finish line. Rest them too little, and they can go from fast to fatigued much like the bunny in the old fable of the tortoise and the hare.
Some teams have already called it a day in this race.
Cantwell musher Mike Santos was resting in a cozy arctic oven tent here, waiting for King, Seavey and Mackey to pass through. Santos scratched Thursday afternoon and couldn't mush back to Nome until the leaders passed.
With hours of time to kill, he offered his opinions on who had the best chance to win this historic race celebrating the sweepstakes' centennial anniversary.
"Mackey seemed to be moving with more speed, but Jeff seemed to be moving more fluently," he said. "But I think that's been pretty typical over the last couple years: King has the easier moving, perhaps better team, but Lance gets it done."
Who gets it done could become an issue tonight.
Perhaps the most interesting twist in this race could unfold when the first musher across the line discovers he has been duped by race organizers. Whoever crosses first underneath the burled arch - the same monument used for the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race -- might not be the winner.
"There was a question (at a 3-1/2 hour mushers meeting) about how we were doing the (race) time," race marshal Al Crane said Wednesday morning.
Mushers asked Crane, "How could you add minutes (secretly) at the checkpoints" to offset the two-minute gaps in the staggered start of 16 teams.
Mushers didn't understand how easy it was, Crane said, so he told them the time differential wouldn't be made up at all.
"Nobody is going to screw with the times (on the trail)," Crane said. "I don't understand why they had a problem with the time differential. OK, the first team that comes back wins. I'll explain (adding the time) after the fact. Nobody's going to get hurt by it. (Now) they all have the same strategy - they want to win."
Mushers thus departed Nome with the idea there would be no time differential, meaning each musher technically left at 10 a.m., despite the two-minute staggered start. Considering there are no mandatory rests, race marshal Al Crane said, there was no place to make up the time.
But really, to keep things fair, Crane said, the time will be made up when each musher crosses the finish line. The winner will be based on the best total elapsed time.
"I don't want them to know all the information," Crane said.
Theoretically, of course, whose first across the finish line and who is first on elapsed time might prove a moot point. Of the three frontrunners going for the biggest payout in the history of an Alaska professional sporting event, King left Front Street in Nome only four minutes ahead of Seavey and 10 minutes ahead of Mackey.
Long-distance dog races usually end with teams hours apart or, at the very least, tens of minutes apart. But the Mackeys know a thing or two about tight races. Lance's dad, *****, won the Iditarod's only photo finish.
Said Lance on Tuesday, "The fastest team doesn't always win."

[Di*]

OK I heard via June's Iditasupport site that they were going to decide it after everyone has finished, so guess this is where they got that info!
Man this race is weird, just not used to this kinda stuff being pulled. Wonder how the mushers are going to react to this?

[ThisSpaceForRent]

pardon me but how hard is it to figure out....shhhhhesss....talk about over complicating a simple math problem.

tsfr

[Iditafanatic]

It's not that it's hard to figure out -- we can all do the math (I hope! )

The problem is, we don't know what the rules are.

As of Topkok, King is 5 minutes ahead of Seavey-- but if there is going to be a differential adjustment, then he's only 3 minutes ahead...

AND AS OF RIGHT NOW, NONE OF THE MUSHERS KNOW THERE IS GOING TO BE AN ADJUSTMENT!

So, if King is ahead, then Seavey has less incentive to catch up... and so on.

As far as I'm concerned, the officials have made a terrible mess of this race!

[tanglefoot]

that sounds a bit underhanded to me letting the mushers think there is no time to make up and then when they cross say oh er yes there is ..surprise! i can imagine some very pee'd off mushers and that will only serve to stop mushers coming again if they hold it that way and would leave a bitter taste in the mouths of the fans.

[Iditafanatic]

Underhanded is one word for it...

[Moose]

This is my first stop this morning. Any updated info? If what the ADN article reports is true, what a confusing mess for everyone with the potential for a very ugly outcome for drivers. Some situations just beg the question, "What were they thinking?"

Phew. Just did a quick catch-up. It doesn't pay to go to bed towards the end of a hot race. What a blessing it worked out the way it did. This has been billed as a one-shot commemorative race. If they really plan on bringing it back to life again, at least some bugs have been identified and they'll know what to address.

Good race, all.

[aren]

This is my first stop this morning. Any updated info? If what the ADN article reports is true, what a confusing mess for everyone with the potential for a very ugly outcome for drivers. Some situations just beg the question, "What were they thinking?"

Phew. Just did a quick catch-up. It doesn't pay to go to bed towards the end of a hot race. What a blessing it worked out the way it did. This has been billed as a one-shot commemorative race. If they really plan on bringing it back to life again, at least some bugs have been identified and they'll know what to address.

Good race, all.

I couldn't agree more Moose, What were they thinking. The whole situation sort of became "surreal" to me when i saw the following quote from Mr Crane in the ADN article:

"I don't want them to know all the information," Crane said.

I too had to call it the nite towards the end, but had a bad feeling about the whole situation. This mess really had the potential of creating a nasty situation. I am so glad it didn't.

[tanglefoot]

hi aren, still not clear who is winner!! saying mitch and they not gonna pu the time pentaly in , but im kinda thinkin if it was jeff they were!
bad news...just listening to joshs audio report

[aren]

hi aren, still not clear who is winner!! saying mitch and they not gonna pu the time pentaly in , but im kinda thinkin if it was jeff they were!
bad news...just listening to joshs audio report

Tangles.... are you saying that the organizers still don't know who the winner is???????????????? Or are you saying that because Mitch had a later bib# than jeff, they decided not to bother with the time diff at all........but if Jeff had won by a few minutes over Mitch they would have had to consider what to do...........I still don't understand ....... or maybe the organizers still don't understand ............I don't know............. and I don't understand ............Was that clear Tangles...........do you understand