From Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville.com web site (Jimmy Buffett is a sponsor of a, get this, Jamaican dog musher who competed in the Copper Basin race and who will be exploiting dogs in the 2009 Yukon Quest/Yukon Disgrace):
'Jamaican Musher Qualifies for the Yukon Quest 1,000 Mile International Sled Dog Race'
Congratulations to the Jamaica Dogsled Team's own Newton Marshall, who has become the first Jamaican to qualify to run in the 26th Yukon Quest 1,000 Mile International Dogsled Race!
Read the full story below, then check out the photos!
Jamaican Musher Qualifies for the Yukon Quest 1,000 Mile International Sled Dog Race
Glen Allen, AK, January 19, 2009 -- Newton Marshall, the Jamaica Dogsled Team’s long-distance musher, successfully completed Alaska’s Copper Basin 300 and by doing so has become the first Jamaican to qualify to run in the 26th Yukon Quest 1,000 Mile International Sled Dog Race. He came in 13th in a field of 27 starts. His time was 61hrs and 41mins. Newton’s coach Hans Gatt, three-time Yukon Quest winner and previous Copper Basin 300 champion, finished second. Lance Mackey, Yukon Quest and Iditarod champion finished first.
The race started in 48-below zero temperatures with Newton the first musher out on the trail. "When I pulled bib number one I was shocked. I wanted to follow somebody else's tracks but instead I had to be the trail breaker at the race start,” says Marshall. “Sometimes on the trail I didn't know where I was going -- if I was still on the trail. But we’d find the trail again and get to the next checkpoint, where the people were always very nice.”
About the darkest moments on the train Marshall says: “The open water was the worst thing on the trail. I was really scared when I saw that, we had to go so close to it. It was cold, cold, and there was black water open in the ice, running under the ice. Would we go too close and would the ice break? I had to not think and I had to just get by it. Everybody was very encouraging. It was cold and hard, but it was a good race. I feel very good that I did it."
Gatt said the Copper Basin lived up to its reputation, "As usual with the Copper Basin it was the worst trail and the toughest conditions imaginable for a 300-mile race. There is nothing on the Yukon Quest trail that is worse than some of the things Newton saw in the Copper Basin. There were sections 10 miles long of deep sugar snow with no trail."
As an example of how bad the trail was in sections, Gatt says, "One musher had to walk his dogs 20 miles into the finish line after they quit on him. It took him 17 hours. He had camped 6 hours but they would not get started again. He had run out of food and people were giving him things, but finally he said it's time to go and he walked that team, holding the neck line of the leaders. That tells you about the trail. Newton did a great job. He did 300 miles of mountains, open water, deep snow at temperatures ranging down to -50F. The Copper Basin is the toughest 300-mile race period, and this year was no different."
On Newton’s finish, team godfather, singer and songwriter Jimmy Buffett beamed with a definitive “Unbelievable.”
For more information about the Jamaica Dogsled Teams visit:
www.jamaicadogsled.com and cheer them on at www.jamaicadogsled.blogspot.com. To learn more about Chukka Caribbean Adventures visit www.chukkacaribbean.com.
Unbelievably DISGUSTING! (Sled Dog Watchdog)