Blind teen won't run Iditarod

WASILLA -- A legally blind Oregon teen-ager who won special accommodation to compete in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race will not participate in 2004 after all.

Rachael Scdoris, 18, of Bend, Ore., passed up a mandatory rookie musher's meeting Dec. 6 in Wasilla, thereby forfeiting her right to participate next year. Her father cited the high cost of preparing for the race, including the loss of a sponsor, as reasons to forego competition.

Scdoris initially asked the Iditarod Trail Committee to allow her to race accompanied by two "visual interpreters" on snowmachines. She emphasized in a lengthy race plan that the interpreters would not give her an advantage over other racers.

The ITC denied her request in June, but later reconsidered and let the teen plead her case in person during a special meeting at the Millennium Hotel in Anchorage. At that meeting, the committee voted to allow her to run if she used an interpreter driving a second dog team, not a snowmachine.

Scdoris greeted the change optimistically at the time. However, her father, Jerry Scdoris, said Monday that using a dog team rather than snowmachine pushed the cost of doing the race from between $30,000 to $40,000 to at least twice that amount. Also, he said, a snowmachine manufacturer pulled the sponsorship it had previously offered.

The combination of the two made it economically impossible for the girl to raise enough money for the March 2004 race, although Jerry Scdoris said his daughter will try to qualify for the 2005 Iditarod.

"Her budget was $42,000 and she even raised more than that -- $50,000 -- but it wasn't enough," he said by telephone from his home. "It was not a tough decision. It was just too much money. Now we have a whole year."

He emphasized that neither he nor his daughter was upset at the ITC for conditions they approved.

"We're not whining about this," Jerry Scdoris said. "Rachael and I both feel there are other rookies and this is their year. We wish the Iditarod the best this year and all the people running it."

Despite losing one sponsor, Rachael Scdoris is still sponsored by the Atta Boy dog food company and North Star Oil in Kenai, said her father, who has been a musher for two decades and offers sled dog rides in Oregon's Cascade Mountains. She plans to run the Seeley Lake 200 and the 350-mile Race to the Sky, both in Montana, later this winter, he added.

Iditarod Race Director Joanne Potts said rules require rookie mushers to complete two races totaling at least 500 miles within three racing seasons of the Iditarod they want to enter. To count as qualifiers, the musher must be among the top 75 percent of race finishers with a time no more than twice that of the winner.

At age 15, Scdoris finished the Wyoming stage stop race, a 13-day event covering 530 miles in which mushers complete a pre-determined number of miles each day. She ran the Atta Boy 300 in 2002 at age 16.

Scdoris suffers from a retinal condition called congenital achromatopsia. It impairs her central vision, but she said she has excellent peripheral vision along with some depth perception. Her sight is better at night, when most Iditarod mushers run their teams, than during daytime hours, she told the ITC.

Her plan is for Dan MacEachen to drive an accompanying sled dog team and act as visual interpreter. MacEachen is a seven-time Iditarod veteran from Colorado.

Scdoris' 11-page race plan discusses hazards along the trail checkpoint to checkpoint, and what she and the interpreter would do to ensure the dogs' safety. For example, for the trail from Ophir to Cripple the plan says, "The safety and welfare of Rachael's dogs are our number one concern. The only major worries here are possible overflow, punchy trail and sharp ups-and-downs. Periodically the visual interpreter will go ahead to determine trail conditions, specifically at the crossings of the Innoko River and its tributaries."

Some long-time Iditarod racers, including four-time winner Martin Buser of Big Lake, have said Scdoris doesn't belong in the race because her dogs' safety would be jeopardized.

Meanwhile, members of groups supporting handicapped people as well as at least one organization championing equal access for female athletes have endorsed her participation.