John Baker lives in Kotzebue, Alaska which is located on the shores of Alaska’s western coast thirty miles above the Arctic Circle. Baker chooses to live and train his dog team in Arctic Alaska, where the winters are long and the location is remote, perfect for putting that extra competitive edge on him as the dog driver and the dogs he runs with.
Joe Runyan Race Analysis - Iditarod 2011Joe Runyan, outdoor adventurer and author of Winning Strategies for Distance Mushers (2003), won the Iditarod Sled Dog Race in 1989. Runyan is the only musher to have won the Iditarod, Yukon Quest (1985), and Alpirod (1988).
John Baker and his ten dog team crossed under Burled Arch at 9:46:39 on Tuesday to win the 2011 Iditarod. A veteran now of sixteen Iditarods, John now can claim 12 top ten finishes, including a record breaking Iditarod championship. He now owns the fastest Iditarod time ever of 8 days 18 hours 46 minutes and 39 seconds.
Despite incredible surges early in the race by former 4X Iditarod Champions Martin Buser and Lance Mackey, John stuck to his rhythmic marathon strategy and avoided the temptation to race with the front. By the half-way point at Iditarod, Baker had unobtrusively positioned himself in fourth place and was still driving a strong team, capable of a move to the front.
Although Buser and Mackey pulled the pack in the first third of the race at record breaking pace and appeared to control the race, their strategy was overly ambitious. Both Buser and Mackey teams lost their zip in the second half of the race and fell out of the top ten. Baker, on the other hand, ran a more rhythmic and conservative strategy, and maintained team strength for the second half of the race.
John Baker than made a decisive move to the front on the Yukon River. No other team could counter and by Eagle Island, the remote Yukon River Checkpoint, Baker was controlling the race with a 2 ½ hour lead. In classic Iditarod fashion, his strategy of long runs and short rests prevented the following pack, including Sebastian Schnuelle, Hans Gatt, Hugh Neff, and Ramey Smyth from ever regaining contact with the lead.
Ramey Smyth, in a bold move on the Bering Sea Coast, did cut rest and courageously chased Baker from Shaktoolik to White Mountain. Although Ramey and team matched Baker in team speed, he could never seriously attack Baker’s advantage.
At White Mountain, Baker was just 51 minutes ahead of Ramey Smyth, but his team held the advantage in more accumulated rest. After the mandatory eight hour in White Mountain, serious Iditarod strategists felt Baker’s team was more rested, and therefore capable of a winning run to Nome. Still, the tension at White Mountain mounted as race pundits speculated that a falter or misjudgment by John Baker could give Ramey an opportunity to race to the finish. In particular, Ramey Smyth’s reputation as a legendary closer at the end of races raised the odds for a close finish.
The dedicated race fan can follow the progress of mushers by GPS at the Iditarod web site. My expert contacts told me Baker gradually increased his lead over the 77 mile finish from White Mountain to Nome during the early morning hours and squelched a come from behind race to the finish between Smyth and Baker.
The dizzying possibility of comparing numbers and stats, honestly, leaves me personally disoriented. I can only handle so many numerical evaluations before my mind locks up. However, I can offer a few anecdotal observations about this year’s Champ John Baker, and the immediately likeable and self effacing Ramey Smyth, the challenger that continually tested John Baker and molded this race into an Iditarod record breaker.
I knew Ramey’s mother, the late Lolly Medley in the early 70’s on the Yukon River. A kind and thoughtful woman, Lolly was a mushing enthusiast and skillful designer of gear and harnesses. She started the tradition of the Golden Harness, now offered in her memory, in both the Yukon Quest and Iditarod for the outstanding leader of the race. Ramey’s courageous run this year to second place finish is a great tribute for both his mother and his mushing father, Iditarod veteran Bud Smyth.
John Baker, amongst his many interests and as a pilot, businessman, and active member of the Alaska Native community, locked onto the sport of dog mushing with a dedicated passion. His record as the most successful top ten musher to never win an Iditarod, can be an amusing sidebar to a conversation, but I don’t think anyone that knows him as ever doubted his resolve to win an Iditarod. To those that share his Inupiat heritage, John Baker’s victory has a particularly symbolic power, of a people invested in the modern economy, but still value the traditional ways of life.
John is continuing to leverage his three hour advantage in rest and I doubt his competition, Ramey and Hans, can catch him without a major screw up.
I have been writing for Alaskadispach.com. In those articles I have to be careful about separating opinion and news. But, as a friend, I guess I can offer a few opinions. John took a three hour rest in Shaktoolik, which I am sure decompressed and relaxed his dogs so that they were ready mentally for the long crossing on the sea ice of Norton Bay.
While it’s true that Hans Gatt is working very hard to get contact with John, the latest gps location I saw at 10PM indicated an 18 mile lead in the favor of John. That equals at least 2 ½ hours in travel time. Also, it looks like John, Hans, and Ramey are traveling virtually the same speed across the Norton Bay to Koyuk.
Most significantly, however, is the fact that John rested in Shaktoolik and Hans and Ramey just blew through it. That’s a big predicament for Ramey and Hans. They have to rest in Koyuk, and I think at least five to six hours, at a minimum. John, on the other hand, could rest four hours in Koyuk on his present run/rest schedule and make it from Koyuk to White Mountain in one hop. Extra rest is like extra miles. Both are important. John will get as much rest as necessary and then react if he sees any signs that Hans or Ramey starts to move. That’s exactly what John did at Shaktoolik.
His strategy is great, in my view. John is resting just for what is physiologically necessary. He is forcing Hans and Ramey to make very difficult decisions. Basically, John knows they won’t make a dumb move and cut the dogs rest for fear of running out of power on the way to Elim. If they short the dogs on rest, they know their race is done, and a huge pack following behind could eat them up.
The main thing I feel, as a fan, is the tremendous pressure that John must be contemplating. He has worked so hard to put this team and strategy together. Now, he is exhausted and operating on a minimum of sleep, and narrowed his focus to a little tunnel. He has to be in the moment and contemplate all the possibilities of the next two days.
The dog teams to the front are traveling about the same speed. By this stage of the race, the dogs remaining in the teams are trail hardened, so reliability is good. Team speeds should remain predictable. Generally, the way to lose a race at this stage is to make a monstrous screw up----lose a trail, go to sleep, inattention to detail, etc., all of which John understands.
Except, he has had about two hours sleep in the last two days, and that makes it tough.
I imagine John is on the Yukon thinking, ironically, that the training was dismally tough this year in Kotzebue. He had to wait a while, but finally the methodical, easy, traveling speed of his team is starting to dominate. Out of Anvik, he is only 20 minutes behind Hugh Neff, and for all practical purposes leading the pack up the Yukon.
The first half of the race was Buser’s demonstration of pure speed and the race pace was almost four hours ahead of Doug Swingley’s record breaking strategy on the southern route. He led the pack out on some incredible moves, especially a giant move from Rohn to Nikolai and then to Takotna in above average warm temperatures.
For a while, it appeared that the pace was too fast and the weather too warm for John‘s heavy coated dogs. However, John quietly sucked back into the pack but at the same time kept in contact with Buser and the front leaders. Fortunately, his thirteen dogs held together and by the end of the mandatory 24 hour he still had lots of power.
At the same time, Buser was faced with a huge problem. In order to keep his team speed, his strategy required lots of rest. But John, Hugh Neff, Schnuelle, Hans Gatt and even Lance kept badgering him. He knew that he had to go all the way from Takotna to Iditarod in one huge run to stay with them and keep his lead. Rather than resting halfway to keep the speed up, he abandoned his trademark emphasis for speed. His plan required that he shut his dogs down for a rest, and now the magic of speed may be gone from his team.
Meanwhile, John’s team had everything calibrated in their minds to do one long run after another. To them, life isn’t five hours to Noorvik, its fifteen hours in wind and a blizzard. They have that speed dialed into their brain that is efficient and durable. Genetically, they could travel like Buser’s dogs, but their mindset and training is on a different goal. And that’s what brought him to the front. They have the mental training to adapt to a marathon strategy for the next five days.
It’s true that Schnuelle and Hans Gatt are dangerous competition, now resting in Grayling. It will be interesting how their strategy unfolds, but I think John’s is the best on the Yukon. Here’s why, John is doing the entire Yukon, one of the toughest, hard pulling sections of the Iditarod, with three stops in Anvik, Grayling, and Kaltag. Schnuelle and Gatt, on the other hand, are stopping in Shageluk (John went straight thru Shageluk), Grayling, Eagle Island, and Kaltag. In other words, John stops three times to boot dogs and feed. Sebastian and Hans will stop four times. One time more of stopping, putting on boots, reloading the sled, is inefficiency.
That is the key to John’s strategy. Long runs that are easy on the dogs and efficient work load for the musher. The wind will be downriver into the face of the musher, and for the first time the heavy coats of the dogs will be an asset. Of course, John is thinking of the Yukon. But fortunately, he has that locked into his mind. What he is really thinking about is the portage to Unalakleet and making sure he has the power to dominate. Once the dogs hit the salt air and the sea ice, he will have the advantage. Just as Buser dominated in the warm temperatures on the south side of the Alaska Range, John’s dogs will dominate on the Bering Sea Coast.
The pack moves to Iditarod and of course we can all see that Martin Buser is in command of the race. His dogs are short haired and he kind of specializes in going fast in warm weather and hard trails. That’s where he has always done the best, at least in the first part of the race.
Therefore, I am actually surprised that John is shadowing Martin so well with dogs from the coast that haven’t seen 20F above for months. He is in fifth or sixth place and I’ll bet John is staying patient and knows when the temperature starts to go down, his dogs will start cranking up.
Early on, Doug Swingley and I were looking at his race and concerned that he lost dogs. But, now it seems that the remaining thirteen are solid and holding together. Knowing John, it wouldn’t surprise me to see the core of thirteen stay together all the way to the finish.
Globally, looking down on the race, I think you have to peg Buser as the race favorite. However, the race is setting up in an interesting way. Buser can’t seem to shake Neff, Schnuelle and John. Naturally, you have to put Lance in the equation, too, but we’re looking at the race with as little emotion as we can. Objectively, it appears Lance is going to be very conservative if he is going to survive to the coast with 10 dogs and therefore he is going to be reluctant to make any big miracle moves.
Swingley and I talk all the time by telephone and when posting our commentaries at Alaskadispatch.com in the Project section for blogs, we decided this morning that it’s impossible to make any appraisals until we see the “in” times to Iditarod. Takotna to Iditarod is 100 miles, and a great test for team legitimacy.
From the GPS tracker it looks like John is traveling well and running conservatively. Without fail, he always does better on the coast, so I am optimistic he could ruin a few parties in the next couple of days.
Doug Swingley, the retired 4x champ, and I have been blogging the race on Alaska Dispatch. We see John as one of our starred competitors and like his early strategy. John rested his dogs on the river enroute to Skwetna last night, which was a very conservative and cautious move that should set him up for todays run to Rohn.
If you are a true John Baker fan, you will note that he dropped two dogs and is now sporting a 14 dog team. It’s always a bummer to lose key dogs early in the race, but I always regard it as a flip of the coin. Somewhere, sometime, a dog is going to have an athletic injury and you just have to expect it. John might go the rest of the way without an injury, and I am sure that’s the way he is looking at it. Besides, 14 dogs is plenty of power----more than enough to accomplish his strategic goals.
If you follow the GPS locators on Iditarod, you have been able to see a remarkable race unfold. The trail appears to be in extremely fast form, with Lance Mackey already to the front at Rainy Pass checkpoint on Pontilla Lake. I mean, the race is much faster than any fan could have imagined and it’s clear that Mackey made a command decision to abandon conventional strategic thinking. Normally, Lance would have stopped at Finnebear Lake for a mid-day snooze. It could be a brilliant move since he essentially escaped a planned rest stop. But, it was RISKY>
Interestingly, John seems to be taking an extended rest at Finger Lake with Rick Swenson and a crew of competitors. I don’t think this is bad planning at all.
It gives Baker fans a little nervous angst because you worry that Mackey is getting too far out. But, you never can go wrong with a conservative strategy that continually puts rest hours into the equation.
I suspect that John has eased the team into a nice rhythm and is preparing to attack with a run to Rohn. Just prior to race start in Willow, John told me he was going to rest on the trail to Skwentna, take four hours somewhere around Finger, and then launch over the Alaska Range to Rohn.
Rohn is where we see the field of top contenders winnowed down to ten or so strong teams. I suspect John will rest four hours and be to the front this evening. The interplay at the front is going to be great spectator material and I wonder how close John will be to race setter Mackey.
In summary, John appears more cautious than previous years. I think that is a good thing. Swingley, who has the fastest southern route time, told me that he rested and ran 50/50 to Rohn and still blistered the trail to Nome. John is close to that schedule, despite the apparent race leaders to the front.
“You can lose on the first day, but you can’t win it.” quote from my Iditarod friend, Paul Ellering, the WWF wrestler.
