One-shot deal?

BIG LAKE — There’s a good chance Rohn Buser’s first Iditarod run will also be his last.

“It’s probably a one-shot deal,” Buser, 18, said while helping his father, Martin, work on a sled inside a workshop at the family’s Happy Trails Kennels in Big Lake.

Though Martin Buser is a four-time Iditarod winner and one of the most successful mushers in history, he said he has no intention of letting either of his two sons (Nikolai, 19, is a freshman at the University of Washington) follow in his runner tracks.

“Our boys won’t be doing that,” he said flatly.

Martin said he’d rather see his sons get an education and make their own way in the world rather than try to lead the life of a musher. Owning a kennel, he said, isn’t the kind of thing a young person with scant resources should be spending their time on.

“It’s such an expensive sport,” the elder Buser said. “That’s one of the things I keep pointing out to people that kinda go willy-nilly, head-over-hells get into it. They don’t see behind the scenes far enough how all encompassing it is.”

Martin said he’s confident that a life growing up with dogs has given his two boys a realistic perspective on what it takes to be a full-time musher. While he’s picking up the tab for most of Rohn’s expenses, the younger Buser will still be responsible for paying for his race entry fee, his ticket home from Nome and “any hamburgers he buys along the way,” according to a posting on the family’s Web site.

“They grew up with it. They see the commitment not only time-wise but resource wise. Time, energy, everything is put back into the kennel pretty much on a year-round basis,” Martin said. “We call it the 50 weeks of the year you’re not on the Iditarod trail.”

But that doesn’t mean that Rohn can’t put his full energy into the sport while he’s still at home. In fact, the younger Buser recently completed classes at Wasilla High School a semester early (with a 4.1 GPA to boot) in order to concentrate on training for the race.

“I’m excited, not too nervous,” Rohn said of his upcoming Iditarod run.

Since he completed his high school course work, Rohn has spent most of his time running dogs with his old man, taking training runs, working on sleds and mushing in mid-distance races. He’s already a veteran of two Kuskokwim 300 runs, placing fourth in 2007 and fifth this year’s wet, hazardous trail conditions.

“That definitely is a good confidence builder, going through the experience of that,” Rohn said.

Rohn said he believes he’s run enough races to have a pretty good idea what to expect once he’s on the trail to Nome.

“The races we do, the mid-distance races, are probably the biggest preparations we do,” he said.

He knows, however, that the 1,049-mile Iditarod Trail will be a different challenge than the shorter races he’s run in the past, and said he has just one goal in mind for his run.

“Just to get there, that’s the main idea,” he said.

Listening in, Martin chuckled.

“You won’t hear me saying that,” he said.

While he’s an Iditarod rookie this year, Rohn is far from a novice at the sport. He’s also a Jr. Iditarod champion who’s been riding on the back of dog sleds “since I was born.”

“I started going on rides when he was training,” Rohn said, pointing to his dad.

He could have worse teachers. Like other rookies in the race, Rohn was required by race rules to take a pre-race orientation course earlier this year taught at the home of a well-known veteran musher: Martin Buser.

“It was a long drive,” Rohn joked.

Though Martin’s 24 years of experience will be invaluable when it comes to things like planning food drops and rest schedules, one of the most important bits of training has come in the family’s shop, where Martin and Rohn have spent long hours building sleds both for themselves and other racers. Martin said the construction work will prove to be quite useful for his son out on the rugged trail, where things can — and quite often do — go wrong.

“That last few days of building sleds was a good lesson. We spend a lot of time talking about what-ifs,” he explained. “What if this breaks, what if that breaks?”

Martin said he has no doubt his son is ready for the race.

“Barring compound fractures — that’s a good enough reason to quit — barring that, I’ll see him in Nome,” he said.

Rohn plans on running a younger, less-experienced team than his father, and said he’s not expecting to have a competitive run. Still, he admitted it would be nice to see how well he can do in what could be his only Iditarod.

“I’m kinda competitive, but I’m not going to do anything I don’t think my dogs can’t do,” he said.

With a team of some of the best-bred dogs in the sport, however, Martin said his son’s chances could be better than most first-time entrants.

“I’ve been beat by my young dogs before,” he said.

But though he’d like to see his son do well, Martin said he’d rather not hear Rohn calling trail behind him.

“I hope not,” he said.

Once Rohn’s Iditarod run is through, he said he’ll begin concentrating on preparations for college, which he’ll begin in the fall. He said he’ll either join Nikolai at UW or travel further east to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, and wants to study biochemistry.

Once he leaves the world of mushing, he said he’ll likely not return, though he didn’t rule the possibility out, either. For now though, he said he’s concentrating on having a good time on the trail during what’s likely to be — literally — his “Last Great Race.”

“I’m trying to get there in one piece,” he said. “That’s the most important goal of all.”

Contact Matt Tunseth at 352-2265 or matt.tunseth@frontiersman.com