Will Aliy Zirkle turn this year into a win? If history serves, she’s a top contender, running most of the team that Allen Moore just brought to the Yukon Quest finish in second place.
Aliy says her team is made up of some “hard core” veteran dogs sprinkled with a little bit of youth to keep the energy up. She’s excited about the reroute of the race and the opportunity to do a little more camping out on the trail, due to longer distances between race checkpoints. She’s hoping running on her home turf of interior Alaska for a large part of the race will serve her well.
Fresh from the 2015 Yukon Quest victory, Brent Sass is another musher familiar with running in the interior.
He did a lot of this year’s training right around Manley Hot Springs, an early checkpoint for Iditarod 2015. Sass is confident in his dogteam, which he’s been with since the start. He bred, raised, and trained this group of dogs. He favors camping on the trail, and feels that the way this year’s race is set up may be in his favor. Sass says his team is competitive, but admits that to win Iditarod, “everything’s got to go your way.”
