When he came into Ruby on Friday morning, race officials informed Ken Anderson that they would add two hours to his mandatory, eight-hour layover. The penalty comes after Anderson violated Iditarod’s rule 38 and ran more than two dogs abreast.
“I’m about playing by the rules. If it’s in the rulebook and I did it, then it’s pretty cut and dry. We don’t read the whole rule book and memorize it.”
Ruby-based race judge Jim Davis said three judges witnessed the violation shortly after Anderson left the start line in Willow. He couldn’t explain why officials had waited until now to levy the penalty.
Anderson says he only ran his dogs in a formation that required three dogs up front because of the way he was carrying dogs down the trail.
“I did it just because I had that trailer, and I was gonna have four dogs in the trailer, so I didn’t want to start with a big, 16-dog string.”
In recent years, mushers have used trailers to rest key dogs as part of their strategy as they move down the trail.
“I don’t know how these other dogs did it if they had a 16-dog string, and they just ran with four empty slots — that seems sloppy to me. So, I cut that back. I started with a 14-dog string, so yeah, I had to have three dogs abreast to have a big, 16-dog line.”
Anderson says he’s not sure how much the two hours will affect his race plan.
“Eight was more than enough to accomplish what I wanted to do to get speed back into my team… some crazy long push to where the dogs could actually benefit from those two extra hours.”
Anderson says he doesn’t want to race his dogs that way, but he will spend some time reevaluating his plan.
