Higher entry fee, smaller purse face those entering '09 Iditarod

ANCHORAGE — Mushers wanting to run the world's best known sled-dog race will have to pay a lot more for a shot at a severely slashed guaranteed purse.

Also starting in 2009, the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race will limit the competitive field to 100 teams.

Race organizers blamed the changes on climbing expenses, most notably those linked to soaring energy costs. That includes the fuel powering the snowmobiles and planes that support the mushers and their teams throughout the 1,100-mile trek to Nome, said Stan Hooley, executive director of the Iditarod Trail Committee.

"Everything's related to fuel," he said Tuesday. "That head of lettuce costs more to deliver these days."

The entry fee for the 2009 race will be $4,000, a thousand-dollar jump from this year's event and more than double the $1,860 fee for the previous year.

At the same time, the guaranteed purse will be $660,000 compared to this year's total take of $935,000. Hooley said organizers hope the final figure will be far more than that.

"The expectation is for us to continue to grow revenues to better stage this race," he said. "Our revenues have grown overall for 15 years."

Whatever the final number, the purse won't affect the winner's prize of $69,000 and a new pickup. The great bulk of the money is distributed among the first 30 finishers in the Iditarod, launched in 1973 to commemorate a 1925 run by sled dogs delivering lifesaving diphtheria serum to Nome.

Many top mushers are heavily funded by sponsors who help shoulder a sport that can run in the tens of thousands of dollars annually.

But for back-of-the-packers like Anne Capistrant, the combination of a bigger fee and smaller purse could prove a deterrent at a time when everything is more expensive. Capistrant, who lives in the interior Alaska town of Healy, was a rookie in this year's race, placing 66th among 78 teams that finished the race. She hasn't decided whether to run next year, but this year's race set her back as much as $20,000.

"While a thousand dollars more for the entry fee is not insignificant, it's only one expense," she said. "It's only one thing that adds up among other things, like the increase in food because of the increase in fuel."

With fuel costs surging, expenses for the March race were $250,000 more this year, Hooley said.

The Iditarod has an army of volunteers who help clear and groom the trail on snowmobiles and fly supplies and make food drops for the teams in rural areas far from the road system, where fuel can run as high as $7 a gallon. Some villages expect the cost to keep climbing.

"We are facing more than the usual number of significant unknowns of how we'll operate in the coming fiscal year," Hooley said.