The annual sled dog sprint competition at Fur Rendezvous billed as the Open World Championship usually features three consecutive days of racing on a 26-mile course, with teams powered by as many as 20 rocketing dogs.
Nothing is the usual this year, though.
Not the distance, not the course, not the conditions, not the format, not the start procedure, not the size of the teams, not the purse and not the race's name.
Yet, in a wonderfully stubborn attempt to salvage something meaningful from the nearly snow-free conditions and warm temperatures that have plagued outdoor winter sports in general and reduced local dog trails to ice in particular, Rondy organizers unveiled truncated racing Friday afternoon.
Meet the Fur Rondy Invitational, a 5-K of sorts – they held a dog race and a drag race broke out. Teams covered just 3.05 miles Friday, as they will again with noon starts Saturday and Sunday.
The course took teams from Fourth Avenue and D Street, east to Cordova Street for a thrilling, 90-degree right turn, south to Anchorage Football Stadium for a quick loop, and back to the start-finish line.
"As if you had been a person training for the Boston Marathon and then asked to run a 200-yard dash,'' noted race marshal Janet Clarke.
Sled dog racing has long been the signature event of the winter celebration that is Fur Rondy, and mushers and officials alike wanted some kind of competition after the cancellation of the 2015 World Championships.
The mantra for mushers, officials and fans: Give everyone what they want – dog teams dashing downtown.
"It wasn't optimum, that's for sure, but it was a dog race,'' said musher James Wheeler of Clam Gulch after his run with his 12-dog team.
Mushers ran smaller teams -- three-quarters of the 20 teams were comprised of either 10 or 12 dogs -- over soft, spongy snow trucked in and groomed on city streets. Smaller teams made the negotiation of the 90-degree turn from Fourth onto Cordova, and vice versa, less risky and more manageable.
"I didn't want to get drug by 14 or 16 dogs,'' Wheeler noted.
The unusual format made for scenes rarely glimpsed in the Open World Championships, where mushers start at two-minute intervals. In the Invitational, the 20 mushers were separated into four five-team brackets. The first two mushers left the start line side-by-side, simultaneously – drag race! A third musher took after two minutes after the first two, and then two more mushers took off two minutes after the solo musher.
That made for drag racing, normal passes and head-to-head passes – one team, for instance, blazed down the Cordova hill while another team climbed up it.
Musher Mark Hartum, who lives near Edmonton, Alberta, said he used his most experienced dogs on his 10-dog team.
"Every one of these dogs is older and used to dual starts and head-on passing, people along the streets, all the chaos,'' Hartum said. "We wanted to run veterans.''
Because most teams finished in 10 to 13 minutes, fans lining Fourth Avenue could watch dogs coming and going, with little down time in between.
Michael Tetzner, the Alaskan Sled Dog and Racing Association's club champion, blitzed the field, clocking 9 minutes, 47 seconds. He seized a 36-second lead on Rick Taylor (10:23). Nikki Seo and Hartum sit third after both clocked 10:24.
Fans lined fencing along both sides of Fourth Avenue where vendors offered food, Rondy pins, animal pelts – a black wolf could set you back $450. Cell phones and selfies (dog teams in the background) were ubiquitous. Dogs barked, yipped and whined, eager to race
The Open World Championship would have offered a $75,000 purse. That was reduced to $25,000 for the Invitational, though all mushers will pocket at least enough to buy some dog food – the Invitational winner will bag $1,650 and the 20th-place musher $500.
Also, bracket winners – Wheeler, Taylor, Tetzner and Seo racked honors – earned $250 each Friday. Bracket winners will earn $300 on Saturday and $350 on Sunday.
While it's not the Open World Championship, it's dog racing at Fur Rondy, and that's salvaging something from, potentially, nothing.
"We understand how important this festival is to the city, and how important it is to have dogs here, and we wanted to be supportive,'' Hartum said.
Reach Doyle Woody at dwoody@alaskadispatch.com, check out his blog at adn.com/hockeyblog and follow him on Twitter at @JaromirBlagr
Fur Rendezvous Invitational
3.05 miles
Friday's results (number of dogs in parentheses)
1) Michael Tetzner (12) 9:47; 2) Rick Taylor (14) 10:23; 3) Nikki Seo (10) 10:24; 4) Mark Hartum (10) 10:24; 5) John Erhart (10) 10:27; 6) Mari Raitto (10) 10:30; 7) Jason Dunlap (10) 10:34; 8) Amy Dunlap (8) 10:41; 9) Ken Chezik (10) 10:51; 10) James Wheeler (12) 10:58; 11) Jack Berry (12) 11:11; 12) Tabitha Nardini (10) 11:46; 13) Luke Sampson (10) 11:47; 14) George Attla III (12) 12:00; 15) Craig Thomas (8) 12:14; 16) Kelvin Hall (12) 12:47; 17) Gary Markley (10) 12:51; 18) Charlie Jordan (13) 13:06; 19) Carl Knutson (12) 13:36; 20) J.P. Norris (16) 0:08:590:14:37 0:14:15.