Gary Paulsen, one of Iditarod’s biggest fans became the first musher to scratch from this year’s race early yesterday morning. Paulsen, 66 was attempting to run his third Iditarod, his first was in 1983, second in 1985, and he withdrew from last years race just days before the start. Paulsen is most known for his work as a children’s book author and his venture into screenwriting for the Disney film “Snowdogs”. Back in Anchorage before the race, Gary called the 2006 race a “nostalgia run”, and said that he should have never quit running dogs. The passion that Paulsen has for the sport can be seen simply in the fact that at 65 years old, he relocated from warm, sunny New Mexico to Alaska just to train for the Iditarod. It is unclear if Paulsen will try again next year, I’m sure not even he knows yet… but one thing is certain, Gary Paulsen’s thirst for Iditarod has not been quenched yet.

ALSO: I just found out that this site doesn’t look right when viewed with some versions of Internet Explorer. I’ll work on a fix right away, hopefully if everything looks goofy for you, you’ll stick around as things SHOULD be looking right by this afternoon.

(photo from iditarod.com)

Posted by admin on Tuesday, March 7th, 2006 at 7:51 am.