Klondike 300 set for Saturday

JEREMIAH BARTZ/ Frontiersman sports editor

KNIK - The 2006 mushing season continues with the Klondike 300 sled dog race this weekend.

Thirty mushers make up the field of the race that is slated to start at noon on Saturday at the Tug Bar, located at Mile 18.5 of Knik-Goose Bay Road, south of Wasilla.

Race organizer Burt Kleinenberg said the conditions are great for what is already a record-breaking year for the 300-mile race.

&#8220It should be an excellent trail,” Kleinenberg said. &#8220With that little bit of snow we got, we should be doing really well.”

The field is the biggest it has been in the history of the event, and the Klondike 300 is offering its biggest purse ever. The 30 mushers who have already signed up will be battling for a piece of the $20,000 purse. Kleinenberg said the Klondike 300 has never had more than 27 mushers, and has never been able to offer more than a $12,000 purse.

There are a couple of changes to the details of the race, Kleinenberg said. First, the start and finish is at the Tug Bar, rather than somewhere in Big Lake. The start of the race has also moved from 10 a.m. to noon. Kleinenberg said there were several reasons why organizers opted to move the start to the Tug Bar. Some of the Big Lake lodges that have hosted the start in the past are now closed. And the ones that are available now do not have the space to host such an event. Plus mushers have had a more difficult time, recently, traveling the trail between Big Lake and the Tug Bar, which traditionally was the first stop on the course.

One they leave the Tug Bar, teams will mush toward the Deshka River Lodge, hit Yentna River Station and the Forks Roadhouse. Once participants hit the Forks Roadhouse they head back to the Tug Bar.

There are three mandatory six-hour layovers, and the first mushers are expected back to the Tug Bar sometime Monday morning, Kleinenberg said.

Veteran musher Lance Mackey leads the list of mushers in the 2006 Klondike 300 field. The defending Yukon Quest champion won the Copper Basin 300, which starts and finishes in Glennallen, last

weekend.

The field also includes Ray Redington, Jr., of Two Rivers, Ryan Redington, of Wasilla, Jason Mackey, of Kasilof, and Cim Smyth of Big Lake.