Fairbanks Daily News-Miner skrev den 19. decamber 2000

Blanford leads tight Hahn 200

December 19, 1999

By CHRIS TALBOTT
Staff Writer

ANGEL CREEK--Most mushers in the Henry Hahn 200 Sled Dog Race view it as a warmup for the season's more important races.

It's a training run, they say, nothing more. Until, of course, they have a chance to win the two-day race from Pike's Landing in Fairbanks to Angel Creek Lodge and back.

"It's a race now," first-day leader Tony Blanford said.

For the second straight year, the Two Rivers psychiatrist led the pack into the Angel Creek Lodge, the midway point of the two-day race, Saturday evening. He finished the first leg of the Hahn at 5:07 p.m., easily scorching his time from last year on essentially the same 80-mile trail with a run of 6 hours, 37 minutes.

"It was like skating," Blanford said as he recuperated from the run in a rental cabin. "You could put on ice skates and make it up here. It's hard-packed and icy. Everyone's going faster."

Blanford was scheduled to leave Angel Creek for the 80-mile trip to Pike's Landing at 11:33 p.m., and was to be closely followed by a tight group of four racers.

Sebastian Schnuelle of Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, was to leave second at 11:39, followed by Peter Butteri of Tok (11:40), Keizo Funatsu of Two Rivers (11:51) and former Fairbanks resident Dave Dalton (11:54), who now lives in Wasilla.

The winner is expected to arrive at the Chena River finish line as early as 7 this morning. Blanford expects a tight finish. He beat Amy Wright and Butteri by a little more than 10 minutes last year.

"He's just blazing," Blanford said of Schnuelle. "And Peter's always there. I'll fire past him and then something will happen and he's right there."

Something did happen to Blanford out on the trail after he hit an ice jumble on the Chena River just four miles from Angel Creek. The defending champion snapped not one, but two stanchions on his sled. The busted sled began to lose cohesion as the useless stanchions put pressure on all the joints.

"It was kind of fun trying to drive a sled with two busted stanchions," he said. "The sled started to come apart."

Butteri said he won't ask anything extra from his team as they head toward the finish line. He's trying out new lead dogs for the 2000 Yukon Quest.

"It would be nice to win it, but by the same token I'm not going to do anything I wouldn't normally do," he said. "The dogs definitely have limitations as far as top speed goes. I'm not going to overrun them just to win."

Jeff King and his handler, Morten Fonseca, took advantage of the slick trail conditions to turn in lightning-fast times in the Hahn 100.

Fonseca and King finished side by side at the lodge at 6:16 p.m., but King had a faster time of 6:26. Fonseca, in his second race and his first in Alaska, finished in 6:46.

"He was as cool as a cucumber and did a great job," King said.

Fonseca, a native of Denmark, was working for Harald Tunheim in Norway when he decided to make a trip to Alaska. He hooked up with King and drove a team of 10 veteran dogs, some from winning Iditarod teams.

"I expected that he would finish first," Fonseca said of King. "But I expected to just try and finish."

Fonseca led King, who started 20 minutes behind his handler and averaged close to 13 mph, all the way to the Lodge, but lost his lead in the final 100 yards.

"His leader was better on commands," Fonseca said. "I was beside him when we finished."

Tim Robb was third in 6:52, followed by John Schandelmeier in 6:57. Hans Gatt rounded out the top five with a run of 7:01. But more importantly, he may have found a few new dogs for his 2000 Iditarod team.

"Two big males really surprised me," Gatt said. "Those were the ones I didn't think would make it. They didn't lope a step. They have really long strides. They were going 14 miles per hour sometimes."