http://www.iditablog.com/2008/03/03/into-rainy-pass-the-gps-impact/ Blogging the 2010 Iditarod Sled Dog Race Thu, 11 Mar 2010 23:48:31 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 http://www.iditablog.com/2008/03/03/into-rainy-pass-the-gps-impact/comment-page-1/#comment-135 Kris Swanguarin Tue, 04 Mar 2008 19:59:40 +0000 http://alaskasweepstakesblog.com/?p=113#comment-135 Great blog, yes, I second that. Blogs are perfect for reviewing topics, like the new GPS information. Everyone should chime in. I like GPS tracking information. I can check into the Website and get up the second (actually 15 minute) locations of mushers. When I ran the race in '97 my friends, family and especially my wife would have liked to have known my location. Yet I can foresee complications. Several mushers are not taking the GPS units for a variety of reasons chief of which is they want to fly under the radar. They fear being monitored. There is value to stealth in competitive mushing. If GPS is made mandatory, the temptation is there for a musher to carry a cell phone and get up to the minute updates from someone sitting at a computer screen in a hotel room in Anchorage. This could be a huge competitive advantage. Knowing that your nearest competitor is resting behind you or just slowing down could break open a race and shut down someone else's. Watching the GPS tracking on the burn today I was impressed at how easy it would be to use this information in this way. This is the similar problem presented in the past with mushers having "sponsors, family and friends" tagging along on the trail by snow machine and in the checkpoints. Certain well-heeled mushers were benefiting from timing information not available to others. Iditarod had to institute all kinds of rules in an attempt to level the playing field. The problem was never eliminated but rule restrictions make it possible for Iditarod and the mushers to keep close tabs on one another’s rendezvous. From a spectator’s viewpoint, I’d like to see GPS tracking. If they mandate it rules would have to be in place to keep the information from becoming a competitive advantage. Perhaps mandatory cell phone scans entering or leaving checkpoints are in the future. It could be done discretely during mandatory gear checks. In any case, GPS tracking makes the race more spectator friendly, especially for all those thousands of school kids across the country that follow along on the Internet and dream of what it would be like to mush a team of huskies across the Alaskan wilderness. Great blog, yes, I second that. Blogs are perfect for reviewing topics, like the new GPS information. Everyone should chime in.
I like GPS tracking information. I can check into the Website and get up the second (actually 15 minute) locations of mushers. When I ran the race in ‘97 my friends, family and especially my wife would have liked to have known my location. Yet I can foresee complications.
Several mushers are not taking the GPS units for a variety of reasons chief of which is they want to fly under the radar. They fear being monitored. There is value to stealth in competitive mushing. If GPS is made mandatory, the temptation is there for a musher to carry a cell phone and get up to the minute updates from someone sitting at a computer screen in a hotel room in Anchorage. This could be a huge competitive advantage. Knowing that your nearest competitor is resting behind you or just slowing down could break open a race and shut down someone else’s. Watching the GPS tracking on the burn today I was impressed at how easy it would be to use this information in this way.
This is the similar problem presented in the past with mushers having “sponsors, family and friends” tagging along on the trail by snow machine and in the checkpoints. Certain well-heeled mushers were benefiting from timing information not available to others. Iditarod had to institute all kinds of rules in an attempt to level the playing field. The problem was never eliminated but rule restrictions make it possible for Iditarod and the mushers to keep close tabs on one another’s rendezvous.
From a spectator’s viewpoint, I’d like to see GPS tracking. If they mandate it rules would have to be in place to keep the information from becoming a competitive advantage. Perhaps mandatory cell phone scans entering or leaving checkpoints are in the future. It could be done discretely during mandatory gear checks.
In any case, GPS tracking makes the race more spectator friendly, especially for all those thousands of school kids across the country that follow along on the Internet and dream of what it would be like to mush a team of huskies across the Alaskan wilderness.

]]> http://www.iditablog.com/2008/03/03/into-rainy-pass-the-gps-impact/comment-page-1/#comment-134 Katy Oyler Tue, 04 Mar 2008 03:29:52 +0000 http://alaskasweepstakesblog.com/?p=113#comment-134 I love your blog and am so glad you are writing it! I like that you tackle a different nugget of interest in each blog, I'm learning a lot. About the GPS units - I don't think they will change too much about the race or the strategies because they aren't recording data which can be reviewed, they only give a current reading. So, what I am finding is that in order to see where a musher rests outside of a checkpoint and for how long, I have to be camped out in front of my computer and checking their GPS dot while they rest. If there are people with enough time out there to watch every GPS dot for the entire race and record it, they probably have the time and know-how to extract that info from the checkpoint records anyway. Just a thought. I love your blog and am so glad you are writing it! I like that you tackle a different nugget of interest in each blog, I’m learning a lot. About the GPS units – I don’t think they will change too much about the race or the strategies because they aren’t recording data which can be reviewed, they only give a current reading. So, what I am finding is that in order to see where a musher rests outside of a checkpoint and for how long, I have to be camped out in front of my computer and checking their GPS dot while they rest. If there are people with enough time out there to watch every GPS dot for the entire race and record it, they probably have the time and know-how to extract that info from the checkpoint records anyway. Just a thought.

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