Steer racing what he calls an ‘all-star small kennel team’

Zack Steer was arguably the surprise of the Iditarod last year, roaring to third place, a spot in the standings far higher than most anybody predicted. It was a scene of jubilation in Nome as someone handed Steer a frosty canned beverage. He held it aloft over his heavily stained yellow parka and toasted, “Score one for the dirty jackets this year!”

Steer believes his 2008 dog team is capable of doing just as well; that is, once he gets to know all his dogs’ names.

Steer is running what he describes as an “All-star small kennel team.” He has assembled the best dogs from his yard, along with dogs from Robert Bundtzen of Anchorage, Bill Steyer of Homer and, well, Jon Little of Kasilof.

 

“It worked last year, really well,” Steer said. The 34-year-old owner of Sheep Mountain Lodge borrowed some of my two-year-old dogs last year. While my dogs helped flesh out Steer’s team, they weren’t the deciding factor. His front end — the dogs driving him to the front of the pack — were all his own.

He went back to the same well this year, and broadened his pool to Steyer, a well-known Yukon Quest veteran who recently moved from Fairbanks to Homer, Alaska. Steyer’s team finished a strong second in the Tustumena 200 and caught Steer’s eye.

A couple of Steer’s key leaders will be back this year, he said, as well as a “phenomenal” lead dog with the awesome name of “Jellyman,” borrowed from Steyer. The makeup of the team twill likely be eight dogs from Steer and Bundtzen’s combined kennels, some untested 2-year-olds and one older dog from me and four trail-wise adults from Steyer. Steer picked up the dogs right after the Tustumena 200 sled dog race at the end of January, and spent February assessing them and just getting to know them.

His conclusion: “This team has the most talent of any team I’ve ever run,” he said. “It has potential to be better than last year’s team. They all seem to get along really well. I’ve never had such a calm team — when I stop, I don’t have a bunch of crazy yappers. When I ask them to run, they run; when it’s time to rest, they rest; and when it’s time time to eat, they eat. It’s a really nice team to run.”

Now it’s finger-crossing time. Will the 16 individual dogs that haven’t trained together all year still make the transition into a single magical corps, a pack with one like mind, motivated by each other to eat up the trail? Like all the competitors getting ready for the restart on March 2, Steer said it’s an unknown if the dogs will gel.

He got the idea to cobble together a team from various kennels after watching Team Norway do it for a few years. Steer’s “all stars” concept still falls shy of the melding of Team Norway. He simply borrows dogs. The Norwegian effort pools not just dogs, but everything — gear, money, ideas and efforts of three key mushers (and many others). The results for Team Norway — Robert Sorlie, Kjetil Backen and Bjornar Andersen — are striking, with two first places and several top 10 finishes since 2002. Backen will be back this year racing Norway’s super team.

Despite a third place finish last year, Steer still sees himself as a bit of an underdog, going against the likes of Backen, Mitch Seavey, Martin Buser, Jeff King and, now, Lance Mackey, among others.

Steer operates without the help of major sponsors and said he still has the same stained yellow coat he wore at the finish last year. “It’ll still be there,” he said. “The only patches on my jacket are the ones covering the holes.”