We’re down to just one episode left of this fantastic show on the Discovery Channel. This week, while we didn’t get much of a view of mushers who weren’t in the top 10 - it was very fun to watch the inside view of Lance Mackey on the trail, with Jeff King right behind him. It was also fun to see local musher Rick Holt arrive at Unalakleet to the warm greetings of so many friends and supporters. Lance’s sneak out of the Elim Checkpoint while Jeff King was still sleeping will prove to be a pivotal point in the race for both competitors and it was very interesting to see the betrayal that King felt upon waking.
Make sure you tune in next week as the race comes to a close and everyone arrives in Nome. As I mentioned a few weeks ago; after the show concludes we’ll post a re-cap of the time between the race’s conclusion and now, bringing you up to date as we prepare for Iditarod 2009.
“Toughest Race On Earth: Iditarod” aired on Discovery Friday evening in it’s new day and time slot. The race is heating up as mushers arrived at the Bering Sea coast. Martin Buser & his son Rohn separated as Martin attempted to catch up with the race leaders, but he also realized it might be out of his grasp this year. Only two more episodes left, make sure you’re catching each show as it airs… We’ve got some surprises coming up in the next few weeks as well - keep your eyes on Iditablog.
Here are our “re-blogs” from the section of the trail that was covered in this week’s show.
The Discovery Channel announced last week that “Toughest Race on Earth: Iditarod” is moving to Fridays at 8pm ET/PT starting Tomorrow - Friday, November 7. Iditarod will be paired with a new season of “Survivorman”…should be a great opportunity for more people to catch the race!
For a short summary of tomorrow’s episode, see below - we’ll also be back tomorrow evening with a re-cap, and a preview of next week’s show. Make sure you don’t miss this opportunity to catch all the inside action of the Iditarod as over the next 3 weeks we see what it took to become 2008’s champion.
Friday, November 7th
With most teams now in their 24-hour break, Lance Mackey and Jeff King make up for time lost. Mackey is the first to Checkpoint: Ruby, leaving King both confused and frustrated. King devises a plan to win the race: He will let the returning champ lead and thus expend precious energy breaking trail. Rookie Darin Nelson becomes the latest musher to withdraw from the race — a sick dog team breaks his will to continue, and he chooses to scratch. Meanwhile the Buser family separates to allow former champion, Martin, a shot at the gold. It’s now a race to the coast along the mighty Yukon.
Another great episode of “Toughest Race on Earth: Iditarod” just finished up tonight, and will start re-running throughout the next week in true basic cable fashion. A piece of the show that I enjoy is the opportunity to see the mushers and the dogs up close. There are little personality quirks that I’ve noticed at the checkpoints over the years that I think also come out during this show, its kinda fun. I did notice today and was disappointed by the fact that this episode didn’t focus as much on the back of the pack as previous episodes have, thats been one of the advantages of this show compared to the ones on “Versus” in March, the chance for a more holistic view of the race.
Looks like there will be no new episode next Tuesday, I can only assume its because most of us will be watching election coverage. The next episode premiers on Nov. 11th, make sure you tune in.
Here are our “re-blogs” from the section of the trail that was covered in tonight’s show.
I’m working on a big blog entry to post after this show finishes up to quickly catch everyone up on what has transpired since last march in Iditarod news… and what we know about Iditarod 2009!
Just like I mentioned last week, its so fun to be watching this race again on the Discovery Channel. I’m impressed with the small details that they are able to portray in just an hour long program each week. It was fun to see some of the “sled-cam” shots of mushers in the middle of nowhere, and great to hear some of the stories that don’t always make it back into the newspaper the next day. This episode covered some of the most treacherous terrain of the entire race, when looking at a map they didn’t cover much ground but a lot of exciting things happened while mushers were out on the trail.
This week we’ve got more “re-post” coverage of the 2008 Iditarod, allowing you to follow along reading our coverage from the period of the race that was shown in tonight’s second episode on the Discovery Channel.
I just watched the first episode in the Discovery Channel’s new series “Toughest Race on Earth: Iditarod”. As a fan of the race for years and as someone who spends time following every moment while the race is in full swing it was fun to watch the sport from this perspective. I’ve never quite been happy with how the Iditarod has been covered in the national media (a part of the reason I’ve continued this blog). This is such an amazing sport with such amazing athletes… nothing has ever quite “gotten it” when trying to tell the full story. I think Discovery is well on its way to being the first mainstream show to fully capture the race and its competitors.
Over the next few weeks as the show airs, I’ll be going back providing links to the posts that I wrote during the period of the race that happened during each episode. For those of you who didn’t follow along last March, you’ll get to re-live how we saw the race unfold… you’re seeing it on TV, but now you’ll get one more perspective as if it was happening all over again.
We’ll start ramping up here tomorrow, re-posting some of the articles and coverage that we wrote during the 2008 Iditarod Sled Dog Race. We’ll post in correlation to the Discover Channel series, so after you watch it on TV you can re-live that part of the race here on Iditablog!
I did want to remind everyone one last time though that this evening will be the premier of “Toughest Race on Earth: Iditarod” on the Discovery Channel. It will be the most comprehensive look at the Iditarod to date as it seeks to follow not just the leaders of the race (as most coverage has done in the past) but those all through the entire pack of mushers. There were nearly 30 teams that were outfitted with cameras during last years race. The production company that has been working on this show for the last 8 months is the same group that has done the very high quality, and very entertaining “Deadlest Catch” and “Ice Road Truckers”.
The video below is 2-time consecutive Iditarod Champion Lance Mackey appearing recently on Conan O’Brian to promo the Discovery show.
UPDATE 10/18 - I just updated the post to include the actual video of Lance on Conan….
World Premiere Series Begins Tuesday, October 14 at 10PM ET/PT
Discovery Channel continues its exploration into and chronicling of the fascinating world around us with the groundbreaking six-part series TOUGHEST RACE ON EARTH: IDITAROD. Defining adventure programming, the world premiere series provides a rare look into one of the harshest races in one of the most beautiful and challenging places on the planet – The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. Across frozen rivers, barren tundra, mountains and thick forest in freezing temperatures, this grueling 1,150 mile race from Anchorage to Nome, Alaska puts mushers and their dog teams through the ultimate test of human and animal teamwork and endurance. Filmed in March 2008, this series tells stories through the eyes of the men and women who dared to take on the ultimate test of human and animal teamwork and endurance. The intense preparation and training of race veterans and rookies alike show what it takes to compete not only against each other, but also Mother Nature.
Right before Lance Mackey’s 2008 All Alaska Sweepstakes 3rd place finish in Nome, Lance was hit by a snow machine. The machine was traveling at a high rate of speed behind Lance. He flashed his lights and yelled at the driver, but says it didn’t seem to matter. Mackey jumped off the sled just before the snowmachine hit the sled from the rear and ran it over.
The day after the accident Lance went on local Nome radio station KNOM and talked about his story.
We know things have improved quite a bit since then, but its still chilling to hear Lance tell this story.
We’re at a spot in the race right now where everyone can take a deep breath! The next musher isn’t expected to reach Nome for another 14 hours or so, and because of a storm front that is in right now most teams are being advised to stay where they are for the time being. Aaron Burmeister was the last musher to arrive so far, and whenever Aaron gets in from the Iditarod the people of Nome always come out to welcome the home-town musher…..AAS was no different.
Burmeister was welcomed by a healthy crowd in Nome, and when asked how the trail was Burmeister replied “Well…it was there!”. All of the mushers arriving into town have been greeted by All Alaska Sweepstakes Queen, Janice Doherty and the members of the queen’s court. In total over $40,000 was raised by the queen’s contest and will be distributed among the top 9 finishers.
The big story of today was the news of Lance Mackey’s collision last night outside of Safety and Cape Nome. We’ve received an update on his dog Zorro who was in the sled bag, and was taken to Anchorage to be treated.
This is the latest coming out of the crew in Anchorage:
The big injuries are 3 broken ribs, and possible damage to Zorro’s spinal cord. At this point Zorro can’t feel his back legs, but can feel his front paws. Doctors aren’t sure if this is due to a spinal injury which could be permanent, or feeling could come back if it was due to spinal swelling. As horrific as these injuries are, they don’t appear to be life threatening… he is being hydrated with IVs at this time.
Finally, many of you are probably reading this on alaskasweepstakesblog.com, and may have never stumbled upon my blog before. I do this same thing during each Iditarod over on my permanent site iditablog.com. If you haven’t done so already, please add me as a bookmark for next year. As I’ve told a few friends, if I’m going to devote so much of my time during these races to writing about and covering them, I might as well have people read it! I appreciate all the new readers who have found me over the last few days.
I’ll be in Nome for a few more days, and will try and keep the information flowing on this historic race as the final mushers make their way to the finish line.
(Aaron Burmeister poses at the finish line with first his trail support team, then the AAS Queen, and Katie Schobert the queen contestant who raised Aaron’s purse, and finally a young fan greets one of Aaron’s dogs in his sled bag)
About Iditablog.com - Iditarod 2009 News and Coverage
Founded in 2005 Iditablog.com has been on the trail covering the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race along with other major races, continuing to attract a strong loyal following as we go. Always looking for innovative ways to communicate stories and updates, Iditablog has taken advantage of many forms of new media including written reports, audio podcasts, live-on-site streaming radio broadcasts, and video highlights. Portions of our audio coverage have also been inserted into Iditarod television productions by the Versus network.
