Thanks for all those who tuned and listened to our live coverage this morning, it was pretty crazy to have nearly 1,000 listeners all listening at once around the time Lance crossed the finish line.

We’ll have audio posted soon of the hour long broadcast, many thanks to KICY for the “on the ground” reports, and BSSD SBD who were hosting a great webcam!

For a short summary of tomorrow’s episode, see below – we’ll also be back tomorrow evening with a re-cap, and a preview of next week’s show.  Make sure you don’t miss this opportunity to catch all the inside action of the Iditarod as over the next 3 weeks we see what it took to become 2008’s champion.

Friday, November 7th
With most teams now in their 24-hour break, Lance Mackey and Jeff King make up for time lost. Mackey is the first to Checkpoint: Ruby, leaving King both confused and frustrated. King devises a plan to win the race: He will let the returning champ lead and thus expend precious energy breaking trail. Rookie Darin Nelson becomes the latest musher to withdraw from the race — a sick dog team breaks his will to continue, and he chooses to scratch. Meanwhile the Buser family separates to allow former champion, Martin, a shot at the gold. It’s now a race to the coast along the mighty Yukon.

Looks like there will be no new episode next Tuesday, I can only assume its because most of us will be watching election coverage.  The next episode premiers on Nov. 11th, make sure you tune in.

Here are our “re-blogs” from the section of the trail that was covered in tonight’s show.

Iditarod 2008, Episode 3: McGrath – Cripple

1. Takotna: 24-hours of Confusion – The pack thins out
2. Ophir: 24-hour Check-up
3. Ophir: The 24-hour Choice
4. Cripple: Big Day for DeeDee & Details on the Ruby Award

I’m working on a big blog entry to post after this show finishes up to quickly catch everyone up on what has transpired since last march in Iditarod news… and what we know about Iditarod 2009!

This week we’ve got more “re-post” coverage of the 2008 Iditarod, allowing you to follow along reading our coverage from the period of the race that was shown in tonight’s second episode on the Discovery Channel.

Iditarod 2008, Episode 2: Rainy Pass – Nikolai

1. Rainy Pass: Into Rainy Pass & The GPS Impact

2. Rohn: Backen is Back!

3. Nikolai: The lead pack will change into Nikolai

4. Nikolai: Mackey out of Nikolai, Garnie out of the race

Over the next few weeks as the show airs, I’ll be going back providing links to the posts that I wrote during the period of the race that happened during each episode.  For those of you who didn’t follow along last March, you’ll get to re-live how we saw the race unfold… you’re seeing it on TV, but now you’ll get one more perspective as if it was happening all over again.

Iditarod 2008: Ceremonial Start – Rainy Pass

1. Anchorage: The Race is on!

2. Willow: The 2008 Breakdown

3. Yentna: Goodbye Willow – Hello Alaskan Wilderness

4. Rainy Pass: Into Rainy Pass & The GPS Impact

Let us know what you thought of the Iditarod show on Discovery this week…. post your comment below!

I’ll be back next week with more thoughts and a repost of the next series of blogs! (of course you can always read ahead too!).

I did want to remind everyone one last time though that this evening will be the premier of “Toughest Race on Earth: Iditarod” on the Discovery Channel. It will be the most comprehensive look at the Iditarod to date as it seeks to follow not just the leaders of the race (as most coverage has done in the past) but those all through the entire pack of mushers. There were nearly 30 teams that were outfitted with cameras during last years race. The production company that has been working on this show for the last 8 months is the same group that has done the very high quality, and very entertaining “Deadlest Catch” and “Ice Road Truckers”.

The video below is 2-time consecutive Iditarod Champion Lance Mackey appearing recently on Conan O’Brian to promo the Discovery show.

UPDATE 10/18 – I just updated the post to include the actual video of Lance on Conan….

TOUGHEST RACE ON EARTH: IDITAROD

World Premiere Series Begins Tuesday, October 14 at 10PM ET/PT

Discovery Channel continues its exploration into and chronicling of the fascinating world around us with the groundbreaking six-part series TOUGHEST RACE ON EARTH: IDITAROD.  Defining adventure programming, the world premiere series provides a rare look into one of the harshest races in one of the most beautiful and challenging places on the planet – The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.  Across frozen rivers, barren tundra, mountains and thick forest in freezing temperatures, this grueling 1,150 mile race from Anchorage to Nome, Alaska puts mushers and their dog teams through the ultimate test of human and animal teamwork and endurance.  Filmed in March 2008, this series tells stories through the eyes of the men and women who dared to take on the ultimate test of human and animal teamwork and endurance.  The intense preparation and training of race veterans and rookies alike show what it takes to compete not only against each other, but also Mother Nature.

“Josh Rogers, a former Nome resident, maintains a cleverly named blog on the race. He not only maintains it, he maintains it with passion. His coverage is far and away better than what is available through more traditional media sources, going into detail about back of the pack competition, who is moving in and out of the top ten, who is making a dramatic rise from out of nowhere to the leader’s board, etc. He also has some interesting comments on media coverage of the event, like this posting from earlier this week on Rachael Scordis, who last year attracted a lot of center media attention by being the only blind participant.His coverage reminds me of NASCAR coverage when done well. If you watch NASCAR on a major network that doesn’t know what it’s doing, the announcers pay attention to the lead, maybe the top five cars. But if you watch it on a well informed network, the announcers focus on the most interesting elements of the race: who is moving around, which positions are really heated, who has moved from 21st to 10th place, etc. Those intrarace dramas are important to the informed fan, and the educated network knows this.Josh Rogers does this for the Iditarod. Rogers isn’t the only blogger covering the Iditarod, and certainly not the only one doing it well, he just does it the best.”
  Sports Media Watch – March 9th 2006

The Iditarod Race is always a very exciting and emotional event for all involved. Thanks for sharing your own excitement well contained in your wonderful commentaries. Looking forward to next year’s blog! –
Commenter Karl Sooder

For a real expert opinion though, visit Iditablog.com. They’re linking back to their accounts of the race coinciding with the parts that make it on the show.
- Chicago SunTimes Sports Blog

The Iditablog has done a great job of covering the race once again this year, with regular updates, race analysis, and interesting information in general. For fans of the race, I’d recommend two recent blog posts in general.

The first is entitled The race is truly on! and is a recent update on the current leaders, Martin Buser and Jeff King, who are mere minutes apart at the front of the pack. Both of them have completed their mandatory 24 hour rest stop, and have fresh teams out on the course.
-The Adventure Blog

…were it not for the efforts of Joshua Rogers of Iditablog.com, we would know very little indeed about the details of this race (All Alaska Sweepstakes 2008). The Alaska newspapers are doing a dismal job, posting online articles that are invariably stale and perfunctory.
- Sled Dog Blog