2009 Siskiyou Sled Dog Races  - Mushers Announcement

The Siskiyou Snow Dog Sporting Association is pleased to announce that we will be hosting our weekend of sled dogs races on January 23^rd, 24^th, and 25^th, 2009 at Deer Mountain Snowmobile Park Trailhead, north of Weed, CA.  Our distance race has been approved by the Iditarod Board of Directors to become an Iditarod Qualifying Race.  To fulfill the distance requirement we have increased the mileage to 220 miles from 135 miles.

The vet check (mandatory for only the distance teams) will start early Friday the morning of the 23^rd and the race will begin early that afternoon.  Teams will have until Sunday the 25^th, 5:00 pm to complete the course.  By having the vet check the day of the race at the trailhead we figure it can possibly save the mushers an evening of lodging (to offset the cost of fuel prices) in case they don’t want to take advantage of our local host families program.

The sprint, mid-distance, and skijoring races will begin at 9am  and run through early afternoon, both Saturday and Sunday of the 24^th and 25^th and will be followed by the Awards Banquet Sunday evening in the town of Weed, CA.  The Distance Race purse is set at $7,250, paying down through 5^th place, plus $150 for Best Cared for Team and $100 for the Sportsmanship Award.  The purse for the sprint/skijor races will be $2,500, paying down through 5^th place.  Awards will be given to all the mushers that completed their race category or categories.