Montana Creek Racing

This past weekend was full of highs and lows.  One of the highs was the temperature – in Talkeetna where we stayed it hovered around 20 above. Nice and warm for the dogs and the people.  The temperature at the Montana Creek track was much colder, -5 on the first day and -13 on the second day – but just before the 6-dog class Eric pointed out the shimmer on the mountains – the cold was leaving the valley and the mountains had that shimmer that you see on bitumen on a hot summer’s day.  It as suddenly 12 above!  Mother Nature sure knows how to keep us on our toes.

I am going to backtrack a little to heading down the highway.  I have always loathed driving through Cantwell. On a beautiful day there is just beautiful scenery, on a not so good day the wind howls, the roads are terribly slippery and icy and it is bitterly cold.  Cantwell residents should be inducted into the Hall of Hardship Fame – these guys endure God awful conditions and still stay there.  If I ever say I am moving to Cantwell, shoot me please.

The one thing about wind and snow on roads is you get some really amazing effects. My favorite is the wind dancing the snow

across the road. They look like specters dancing together, but I like to think of them as angels.  You drive along and the drifts dance along across the snow, and before it hits the other side of the road, the beautiful dance has come back to the other side.

When the cars and trucks go by, the specters get confused and are not sure who was leading till the turbulence dies down.

At one point I had a flashback to riding a horse across a fast flowing river.  Looking down made me disoriented as I was moving perpendicular to the flow.  This happened on the highway as the snow drifts were so thick and moving so fast, I lost my orientation and just had to imagine the road under the moving snow.

After getting to the hotel I was very happy to be able to turn my dogs loose.  I had 10 dogs with me, even though it was an 8-dog race we were traveling for.  This made it easier on my doggie carers at home.  So, rather than turn all 10-dogs loose a once I had the truck loaded in such a way that I could let one side of the truck loose together.  This made for fun romping, tons of sniffing and playing.  The dogs love to travel, but they love to run around the new surrounds too.  We have stayed at this hotel, the Latitude 62, for 3 years now and the dogs know all the trails, and thankfully they know their boundaries.

I met up with Arleigh, Erik Rennenberg, and Mickey for dinner that first night.  As it turned out, all but Erik had drew 1st place to leave for our respective races.  This would be Mickey’s first race ever and he was entered in the 6-dog.  His dad is Arleigh Reynolds, so that tells you a lot about his dog savvy.  Mickey is bright, good looking, and an energetic guy.  We were all so excited for his first race, so I assumed the position as his photographer.

Last year I had the chance to have dinner with the guys while racing at another Montana Creek Race.  It was so nice to see Arleigh beaming with pride over his son.  These two have a very special relationship and to witness the beaming pride is very nice.

Mick had a respectable first showing on Saturday with a tie for 7th place.  On the second day he come in one place higher!

My team drew 1st in the 8-dog.  We have been training longer distances, so 8-miles on a flat course was a snap.  I had my GPS strapped to my arm, the two weakest dogs in the truck, and the best 8 dogs I thought I had.  The line-up was:

Jolene and Katrina – lead

Daria and Clara – point

Miriam and Rupert – team

Sparky and Frankie – wheel

There was not a whole lot of choice with only 10 to choose from!  I decided to run my

race according to how the dogs felt.  When we took off the dogs immediately kicked into a high gear.  Some of the dogs were a little surprised by this sudden speed, but they settled into the rhythm and ran at the same pace.  My GPS was set many years ago, when I training these dogs as yearlings, to chirp at me when I hit 20 mph – this was originally so I could slow the team down as I didn’t want the yearlings to run too fast.  As I was racing, the GPS constantly chirped at me.  I looked only a couple of times at the device to see what mile we were at.  With a very strong field of competitors, I needed to have a clean run and to maintain a steady pace.  Listening to the GPS chirp kept my mind calm.  I never run off a GPS, it is too distracting.  To have it for post-race analysis is great.  You can over-run a team if you run them by the GPS and not the team itself.

After hearing the GPS chirp, and knowing I had the likes of Michael Tetzner, Christian Taveau and a few other 8-dog specialists behind me, I felt comfortable that third place would not be so bad.  The team finished the run like a freight train, and they looked great post run.  When the announcers listed the final results of day 1, she came to a tie for second – my heart sunk.  I didn’t want a tie for second.  But my name was not in the tie.  I had won the event.  I was shocked, and amazed.  You think when you are out there that

you are slower than you really are, or even worse – when you think you are faster than you are!  I stood there for a few seconds reeling in the fact that I had won.  Normally, a win is very exciting, but when you have the likes of those top racers in the mix, it is hard to remain calm when they are breathing down your neck.  I had won by 8-seconds… that is 1 second per mile.  Not a whole lot of wiggle room.  I left after sending Arleigh, Jeff Conn, Andy Seitz and Erik Rennenberg off on their open class race.  I wanted to let my guys run around back the hotel and loosen up.

After my dog were fed and checked over, I went to lay down for a while.  I was really tired.  My plan was to feed the dogs, and then head into Talkeetna town and have a pizza sub.  I ended up taking a little nap.  I heard a stirring outside and saw that Jeff and Andy had come back.  I went out to get the scoop.  Arleigh had won the open, and I had beat the course record!  Amazing!  Who would have thought that I could beat a course record?  Not me, that’s for sure.  Ami Gjestson also beat the 6-dog course record.  A wonderful feat for her team – Ami almost didn’t come to the race, but I am very glad she did.

That night I had dinner with Jeff, his wife Sarah, their very funny son Ben, and Andy.  There was a lot of dog talk as you can imagine.  Jeff pointed out that the 6, 8 and open classes were all won by teams who trained at Salcha,  The Salcha trails are very well maintained, and very very fast.

After dinner, Andy suggested we share another bottle of wine.  This, I believe was what set the next day’s events in motion.  The

bottle Andy chose was a Chianti in a fiasco bottle.  We joked about how this would be our only fiasco of the weekend.  A fiasco bottle, as Andy pointed out, has a rounded bottom, and that is where the commonly used word comes from.

The following days events will be brief.  My team looked great.  The weather had warmed up, but the sudden warming came with gusting winds.   We went out first again, the wind blew us around a lot, my little dogs got a little spooked by the wind. We had a few stops, and we had a very slow run. 2 miles from the finish Tetzner passed us as we were hooked down. We had a faster run home now that the wind was lessened by the trees.  We got back to the truck and I praised the little dogs for doing their very best.  I knew I had a slow run.  When the results were read, my heart sunk.  We had done so well the previous day.  In 8-dog, if you have a dog poop, stop, or if you sneeze, you invariably drop a place.  We dropped 7.  Overall, we placed 4th.  Still in the money.

Other teams had troubles too.  As they all said, this is dog racing.  If it were easy to stay on top, it would be no fun.

Our next race is at Montana Creek.  I will be taking my ‘lessons learned’ and working on making some positive changes.  In the end we own a record, my team did an amazing job, and I have some of the very best friends and supporters out there.  I thank them all wholeheartedly for supporting, counseling, and cheering for me and my little team.

There was also this very beautiful view of Denali I saw for the first time while racing – I was going slow enough to enjoy the scenery!  I stopped near Talkeetna for a more relaxed view of the Great One.