A 6-day Iditarod is possible!
An opinion by Chuck Casper P.E.
March 9, 2002

Someday the Iditarod will be a sprint to Nome. Currently the winning teams are loping, but someday they will be galloping like the sprint teams do. The improvement won't be because of a new type of sled, or because the mushers will be wearing aerodynamic spandex. It will be because the dogs are getting better.

The racing sled dogs are getting faster, they are stronger, they have more endurance, they have fewer injuries, metabolize their food better, live longer, and their personalities are getting sweeter.

The breed of racing sled dog is currently going through an accelerated evolution.
History is being made in our time. By selective breeding the mushers are doing in decades what would take Mother Nature to do in tens or hundreds of thousands of years.

Racing sled dogs may never be as fast as greyhounds. The racing sled dogs do have to pull a sled, be able to go though snow when the trail drifts closed, be able to lose heat when they are hot, and still have enough of a coat to stay warm when it is cold. But, the breed of racing sled dogs is closing in on the perfect ratio of bone to muscle mass, ideal respiration, and metabolism (not to mention about a gazillion other factors).

So, how do we get to Nome in 6 days? Well, the racing sled dogs in the sprint races (North American, Fur Rendezvous) can average 20 MPH on a good day. 20 MPH isn't very far fetched for an Iditarod team. Halfway through the Iditarod we can see teams occasionally reaching 17 MPH between checkpoints. In just a couple of more years the Iditarod teams will be right up there. (Of course the sprint teams will be getting faster also.)

Ready for some calculations? To be realistic we should figure that the teams won't be able average 20 MPH the whole way and will slow down a little bit on the last half of the race. Of the 1100 miles, figure that the first half will average 20 MPH, and the last half will average 17 MPH. That gives us about 60 hours of run time (550/20=27.5, 550/17=32.4, 27.5+32.4= 59.9). The ratio of equal rest time to run time will probably continue to hold true for a while, so figure 60 hours of rest time. The two mandatory eight-hour layovers will probably be equal to run time, so we don't need to count those as additional. Of the mandatory 24-hour layover, probably 16 of those hours will be additional.

60 hrs + 60 hrs + 16 hrs = 136 hours

To be realistic, let's add 10% because nothing ever goes as planned. Little things like blizzards and encounters with dangerous animals tend to get in the way.

136 hours + 14 hrs = 150 hours

150/24 hours per day = 6.25 days

The 8-day mark may be broken this year, but the 6-day mark will not be far behind.