0:00

Welcome to car Stuff, a production

0:02

of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. Hi,

0:08

and welcome to car Stuff. I'm your host, Scott Benjamin,

0:11

and I am also your host,

0:13

Ben Boland. We are not alone.

0:15

We are joined, of course, with our good friend

0:17

Kurt Garn. Hello everyone, Holy

0:20

smoked Scott, Scott Benjamin. Is

0:22

it good to see you man? You're back?

0:24

Thank you, thank you. I really appreciate that. It's good to be back.

0:27

It's you kept the seat warm. We

0:29

kept yeah, we kept the seat warm. We had

0:31

a number of strange adventures,

0:34

you know. Uh, Kurt and I are

0:37

always getting into uh some

0:39

some weird conversations. We learned

0:42

about the Testlas cyber truck, which

0:44

I would love to hear your thoughts on. One day we

0:47

did a piece on the evolution

0:50

of the El Camino, remember that one. That was

0:52

a good one, like all caminos,

0:54

you know. The thing that we got caught on was

0:57

that the name of that translates to just

0:59

the road. That's that's

1:02

not too inspiring, and really, I mean and maybe

1:04

a little bit, but uh, but yeah,

1:06

it's it's good to be back. Anyway. I really appreciate

1:08

it, and thank you guys for keeping the show a float here

1:10

while I was gone. I really do thank

1:13

you for that. And uh, just a quick

1:15

explanation. I just took some time off to kind

1:17

of get things pulled together in my own personal

1:19

life. You know that Insomniac show that have been working

1:22

on that. Uh, well

1:24

almost said the word that's stuff is

1:27

is real. Um, I was

1:29

a kidding around that. Really I messed with my sleep,

1:32

messed with my whole life, you know, from

1:34

in here and outside of work, and uh,

1:36

and it was a disaster. And I just

1:38

took some time off to kind of pull some things together and get

1:41

back in uh, in the right mindset

1:43

to do this show and uh and be clear

1:45

and you know, a lot more present here with

1:47

you guys. And I'm really excited about

1:50

getting back into car stuff and just

1:52

making it the best show that we can. I'm really

1:54

really happy to be back behind the mic. Likewise,

1:57

you know, the powers that be would not have

1:59

let me back onto the show if

2:01

circumstances have been different. I kind

2:03

it's snuck back in here, you know how Well

2:05

it's a bit of a reunion for us, right. I mean, you

2:08

know, before it was Kurt and I and that was great, but then when

2:10

I'm back here. It's like it feels comfortable again. It's like

2:12

we never stopped doing the show that

2:15

was years ago. Now it was a long long time

2:17

ago, and we stopped doing that show together. But

2:19

but we're here, we are again. We got Kurt joining

2:21

us, who is fantastic, and we're all

2:23

in this tiny little room staring

2:26

at each other. There might be some awkward

2:28

silence. You never know. We'll see what happens, but

2:30

uh, it's it's I think it's a good

2:32

team. I think we're gonna have a lot of fun with this. Well

2:34

said, Well said Scott. Indeed,

2:37

So today's

2:39

episode is fascinating

2:42

because as you would establish,

2:44

you know, uh you, Kurt and I have

2:47

been doing some variety or

2:49

subversion or iteration of this show for the

2:51

better part of a decade and for

2:53

a peek behind the curtain. Folks, long

2:56

time listeners you'll know this, or anyone

2:58

with your own podcast us. After

3:01

about year five or six,

3:03

on some shows, you start saying, well,

3:07

you start forgetting what you we covered, you know,

3:09

in previous episodes, and wondering

3:12

what you're going to do. And Kurt,

3:14

you recently you had a fantastic

3:17

idea. There was such a good idea

3:20

that I was convinced we had covered it before

3:23

at some point in the past nine plus

3:25

years. And I was wrong.

3:27

We had never covered it, which baffles

3:29

me. I think it baffled you two. Scott's surprising

3:32

yet. So we decided that we would

3:34

cover sleddog races, most notably

3:36

the Iditarod in Alaska.

3:38

Now, some people are gonna say, what the heck,

3:40

this is car stuff, right, but if you remember

3:43

car stuff of the past, we have always

3:46

covered just about any form of transportation,

3:48

just about everything really, and and the

3:50

funny thing is that can even be spun off into

3:52

other things, like I remembered yesterday. We we've even

3:55

done like the Pinewood Derby cars time with

3:57

Derby races, everything that floats, fly, swims

3:59

or drives exactly. Yeah, I mean every

4:02

form of transportation. And I think this is the perfect

4:04

time of year to talk about, you know, something like

4:06

this, you know, some some way of getting around

4:08

that maybe not everybody is familiar with. But

4:11

it's really fascinating. I mean when you dig into it

4:13

and how into uh you

4:15

know, the sleds these people get into the dog

4:17

teams, of course, they get um

4:19

just the whole lifestyle that goes along

4:21

with us, the history of it. It's all very rich, isn't

4:24

it. Yeah. Absolutely. It's also one

4:26

of those races, one of those events

4:28

that takes us to the

4:31

limits of what our

4:34

bodies can like endure,

4:36

and it takes us to the limits of what

4:38

we call civilization. You're very much

4:40

in the front here. I have either of you ever been to Alaska?

4:43

I have you have? Okay, where'd

4:45

you go? Well, I'll tell you it's not you

4:47

know, the wilderness experience that you might think.

4:50

I I took an Alaskan cruise

4:52

many years ago. This is probably seven years ago,

4:54

that's right. Well, yeah, no, I remember, and we

4:56

did talk about this, so there and and you

4:58

know, it goes to the usual reports. It was a celebrity

5:01

brand cruise and we're not getting paid, don't

5:03

worry. That's the celebrity brand cruise.

5:06

So that tells you The ports that we went to, and I can't

5:08

remember all of them, but it was like catch a can um

5:11

gosh, I can't even Skagway was one. I

5:13

know because I'll tell you this. When we went

5:15

to Skagway, and we did go a little further north to but

5:18

we went to Skagway, and one of the excursions

5:20

that you could take and we did do this. One was

5:23

to go to a dog sled training

5:26

camp and I did that and

5:28

we talked about that and it was fascinating.

5:30

It was a you know, I don't know, maybe a forty

5:32

five minute or an hour bus ride to get to this thing.

5:34

You're seeing things like bald eagles on the way,

5:37

and you know, it's just pristine, beautiful

5:40

um Alaskan countryside, you know,

5:42

my little boutanous you know, lots of trees and things

5:44

like that. And it wasn't like a blizzard

5:46

or anything like that. It was it was their off season.

5:48

So they're in training camp, right and

5:51

you get the opportunity to go and sit in

5:54

a training dog sled

5:57

and have them haul you for a one mile

5:59

trek around this mountain course that they

6:01

have and maybe

6:03

should I hold onto this for later? Do you want to talk

6:05

about it right now? It's it's pretty quick. So

6:09

at the time, if you remember when I got back from

6:11

this, I was so fired up about this because

6:13

it's almost like if you can picture a

6:16

golf cart, like an elongated golf cart, so

6:18

it's on wheels. Obviously, it's not on skis,

6:21

and it has a kind of a runner in front, like a

6:24

bump bump guard maybe or something like that.

6:26

It's it's it holds six people sitting.

6:28

There's seats kind of built into this thing. It's an aluminum

6:30

frame, I believe, or metal frame. And

6:32

then the musher would stand on the back and they have a dog

6:35

team in front of you that's pulling and they pull in this

6:37

this kind of mountainous, rocky road right

6:40

and I'm sitting in this cart with you know, all

6:42

these other tourists from the boat. And we're not

6:44

small people, you know, we're adults. My daughter

6:46

was with the shoes small, but everybody

6:48

else's adults, even even the musher. So

6:50

seven people. When

6:52

those dogs took off, I mean it slammed

6:55

me back in the seat. It was. It was a

6:57

forceful takeoff, and they pulled and

6:59

pulled old and pulled, and you thought they were never gonna

7:01

stop. And then the funny thing is

7:05

like these dogs were I mean, they were jacked

7:07

about pulling that sled. They loved it, and

7:09

you think, no, there's no way, there's no you

7:11

know, there's a there's got to be cruel in some

7:14

way, which we'll get to that,

7:16

because there are people that think that. Right,

7:18

you see these dogs they are and

7:20

I know it's hard to believe, but they're genuinely

7:23

excited about pulling that sled,

7:25

and I think it's it's I did. I didn't

7:27

understand it until I was there and and

7:29

felt it in person, saw it in person, witnessed

7:32

all this and it was it was really

7:34

cool day. It was. It was like a hundred bucks at the time.

7:36

It's more now to do this excursion,

7:39

but it was so worth it. It It was so much

7:41

fun and just um a real

7:43

eye opening experience, gave you a little bit of history, gave

7:46

you some of the You could stand on a real

7:48

and actual dog sled that they had retired, you know, a

7:50

wooden one and check that out. It was really

7:52

cool all the parts of it, and um, it

7:55

just it gave you a greater appreciation

7:57

for what the sport is, about

7:59

the history of it that you know, the

8:01

um the truth behind it. Really right, yeah,

8:04

this is this is the thing. So I just

8:06

went to Alaska earlier this year for

8:09

the first time in my life. I was there for about

8:11

ten days. I wasn't too far

8:13

out in the wilderness, but I was

8:15

captivated by how

8:17

close to the wild people are. Like it

8:20

doesn't even big, like the the

8:22

biggest city in Alaska

8:25

is still gonna have moose that

8:27

run the town because moose are just huge.

8:29

I would not be surprised if there's a moose

8:31

in downtown Anchorage that has like a mortgage

8:34

business or something, you know. Uh

8:36

So I was. I was amazed by how close a while

8:38

we are. And this even goes into the rules

8:40

of the idea Rod, which will will discuss

8:43

in a little bit. Let's first separate

8:45

two important things here. Although

8:48

the race is often called

8:51

the idea a rod, right there

8:54

is it goes on a route

8:56

for the majority of the time that follows

8:58

a trail, the Dinerad trail,

9:01

which is a different thing, and it's

9:03

it's very old. It was used

9:06

for centuries before the

9:08

first Europeans arrived

9:10

to use it. And the first people who

9:13

identified and used this trail from

9:16

you know, from the European side of the

9:18

ocean where Russian fur traders

9:21

way back in the eighteen hundreds.

9:23

Native people in Alaska First

9:25

Nations would use this, uh

9:28

this trail system right to travel to different

9:30

villages and eventually

9:34

it became one of those things like a what

9:36

do you call it, like a desire path. It

9:38

was just the best route from point A to point B

9:41

to point C and so on. And so in nineteen

9:43

o eight, government employees

9:46

cleared the Iditarod Trail,

9:48

which made it a little easier to navigate.

9:52

But in nineteen ten,

9:55

someone found gold

9:58

and that changes everything in the town, if i'd it or

10:01

yeah, okay, well it did change everything because

10:04

you know that that town I guess kind of blew

10:06

up overnight, right, They became boom towns. And there were

10:08

a lot of these in Alaska, as we all know

10:10

just from our history classes

10:12

and you know, elementary school, you can kind of learned about

10:15

the gold rushes and what was going

10:17

on there. But what happened is then

10:19

a lot of the uh, the

10:21

what are they called veins I guess of gold dry

10:24

up. You know, they they go away. You know, the gold

10:26

is no longer found. It's not profitable to

10:28

do that. The town kind of drives up

10:30

along the way with it. The town remains, it remains

10:33

maybe uh, you know, a shell of itself. It

10:35

remains kind of a skeleton of itself and becomes

10:37

eventually, um, a ghost town. If

10:39

if it's allowed to go that far. Some of

10:41

them just kind of remain with a few

10:44

residents here and there. But you know what, since

10:46

we're talking about towns, we kind

10:48

of glossed over your trip to Alaska. Where what

10:51

towns did you go to any of the towns that might have

10:53

been on the trail or were you a

10:55

cruise passengers? Well? No, mainly

10:57

Anchorage and I had to add to send

11:00

the team the Cordoba and then

11:02

they also went to Hitchinbrook Island. Uh.

11:04

And then I traveled up to Willow,

11:07

Alaska. You see, you had to send a team.

11:10

Okay, this is interesting.

11:12

I didn't even know you went to Alaska, so I'll have to

11:14

ask you about this later. A lot of water under

11:17

the bridge band, A lot of stuff happened. It's

11:20

like an undercover He's like, it's like a Navy seal

11:22

or something Sea five

11:25

somewhere. Oh man, you know, uh,

11:28

I gotta say, like, maybe

11:30

it's a story for another day, but yeah, the

11:34

the boom and busts that you're talking about is

11:37

very real and it's happened around

11:39

the world. When a town rises

11:41

up based on a single resource,

11:44

it is therefore dependent on that resource. The

11:46

cold dries up than a cold town dies,

11:48

right, and the same with gold. Uh. Before

11:51

the gold actually dried up,

11:54

the Goggenheims bought up a bunch

11:56

of the smaller scale mines

11:58

in the area around Flat and I did a odd

12:01

and they introduced a little

12:03

bit more of like a mechanized, large

12:05

scale way of mining, so it didn't

12:07

take as many individuals like sitting

12:09

there, you know, trying to strike gold in various places.

12:12

So it kind of took away

12:15

the need for mail deliveries and

12:17

food deliveries and travel along

12:19

the trails in between. So

12:23

the gold may have dried up later, but

12:25

before that happened, like kind of like a large

12:28

I guess company or conglomerate

12:30

came in and started doing

12:32

all the mining, so it needed less

12:34

individuals. So it's interesting is they they

12:36

had less individuals, and it took away the need for

12:38

food and the need for all that too, took for many

12:40

many people. It means that they never were

12:44

quite established the point they could have

12:46

been. They didn't get the roadway systems that

12:48

they would have had. They didn't get um, you know,

12:50

the infrastructure that we would normally think of would associate

12:52

with a larger town a small airport. Even

12:55

a lot of things were happening railroads,

12:57

for example, around this time or

13:00

kind of starting to be built in Alaska.

13:02

So I think human travel

13:05

along the trail is just kind of a lot of

13:07

different things happen at once to make this perfect

13:09

storm. If you don't use these trails,

13:11

they just go into disrepair

13:13

sort of. That's what keeps them there. It's

13:16

a frequent travel. Yeah, this is

13:18

exactly what happened to the Bates Hotel. And that's

13:20

that's exactly what could

13:23

lead to bad things.

13:27

That's what a Hitchcock called it. Uh So,

13:32

one question we have to address here

13:34

at the top before we get in the nuts on the bolts

13:36

of the race itself. We

13:39

need to explore the

13:42

role of dog teams in general

13:45

in this part of the world. Nowadays,

13:47

we're very fortunate there are

13:49

airplanes all over the place. They like

13:52

there are tons and tons of cessments in

13:54

Alaska, right and they make small,

13:56

you know, like puddle jumper flights because

13:59

it's the best way to access

14:02

uh point A to point B. In some cases, before

14:05

there were airplanes delivery mail and supplies

14:07

and so on, two very remote areas

14:09

of Alaska, people used

14:11

dog teams. It was the best way to transport

14:14

yourself and goods, uh,

14:17

you know, game, food, water,

14:19

so on. And many

14:21

people lived a subsistence

14:24

lifestyle where you

14:26

know, you were so familiar with your dog team.

14:29

They it was like your daily

14:31

driver, just like horses would have been

14:33

back then in areas further south. Sure,

14:36

and you you take care of them extremely

14:38

well because that's your only way to get around. They're

14:41

they're extremely valuable to you, right, I

14:43

mean, they're they're like gold in themselves. I

14:45

mean, you don't want anything to happen to your dog team. You don't

14:47

want anything to happen to your horse team. Of course. Um,

14:50

they become like family members, really, a lot of them, I

14:52

would bet. I mean, it's not like

14:55

they're not just work animals. They're also part

14:57

of the family, similar similar to your cars.

14:59

You yeah, I guess, so they

15:02

have to take care of it. Yeah, well it depends on the car. You

15:04

know, some

15:07

some you grow out of favor with quickly,

15:10

more quickly than others. Right, But this is this

15:12

is a critical party here, right, because we're

15:14

talking about delivery of goods

15:16

and services. Well, I guess goods via

15:19

dog sled. So you know what can you take

15:21

You can only take small items, really, But

15:24

what happens when there's maybe an emergency?

15:28

Ah, excellent question,

15:30

Scott. It's almost as if you're

15:32

setting me up for something, you know.

15:35

Uh, it's true. And this leads

15:38

us directly to the story of the

15:40

race that we call the ident a rod today

15:42

also called the last Great Race

15:45

on Earth. Well that's from my didad

15:47

dot com. They're a little biased. So

15:50

in ninet there

15:53

were twenty mushers. Have we even talked?

15:55

You mentioned musher? What's a musher? Musher is

15:58

the person driving the sled, riding

16:00

the sled, I guess I don't know, driving, piloting,

16:03

pilot. Captain shouts

16:07

the commands the dog, Yeah,

16:12

mus mush.

16:21

So in a

16:23

team of twenty mushers commanding

16:26

about a hundred and fifty sled dogs, had

16:29

to travel six hundred seventy

16:31

four miles that's one

16:33

thousand a five kilometers for everybody

16:35

outside of the US and like two other countries.

16:38

Uh. And they traveled this tremendous

16:40

distance in five and a half days. And

16:42

they were on a mission

16:45

like some real superheroes stuff. What

16:47

were they doing? They were delivering a

16:49

serum to cure dip theory

16:51

outbreak that they were having a Gnome at the time,

16:53

how's there going from wherever the

16:56

I think initially wasn't there. There was a plane

16:58

I think that took the initial um

17:01

serum right to a certain train, a

17:03

train the first

17:05

little bit, yeah, and then the train could

17:08

no longer go the rest of the distance, and the dogs

17:10

were able to accommodate that. And of course we

17:12

we said there were twenty mushers, that means

17:14

twenty dog teams. Yeah,

17:17

yeah, like a big relay race. You're right, it's like,

17:19

you know, hand off the serum, get it on its way and

17:21

off to see them get on the way. And the reason they

17:23

need the serum, I don't know if we even said this. It was diphtheria,

17:26

right, there was. There was a diphtheria

17:28

outbreak in Gnome and the surrounding

17:31

smaller communities, and it

17:33

was a It was an epidemic, There's

17:35

no two ways about it. The

17:37

authorities and Gnome realized that

17:40

the diphtheria anti toxin they

17:42

did have was bad. It

17:44

was yeah, bum

17:47

antitoxins that and expected

17:49

to have efficacy, So they

17:51

needed this stuff in a hurry, and that's why there's

17:54

a relay because the dogs are still

17:56

fresh, right, and so they can pass it

17:58

off to one another. This became

18:00

known spoiler alert. They

18:03

successfully completed the run, the

18:05

dip theory anti toxin was delivered,

18:07

the town was saved. This is

18:09

now known sometimes as the Great Race

18:12

of Mercy or the Serum

18:14

Run, and these people and

18:17

their dogs became heroes.

18:19

They were celebrities overnight, so

18:21

much so that okay, we've gotta remember this too

18:23

that we're talking about um um

18:26

Wait, okay, we know where Alaska is right? How far away

18:28

Alaska is from New York? Yes, okay,

18:30

there is a statue in

18:32

h in Um Central Park in New York

18:34

City of one of the dogs

18:37

that they considered to be like the hero dog.

18:39

It's the lead dog that finally brought the

18:41

serum into Gnome. Right, it's the last

18:43

dog. Um it is um.

18:46

His name is Balto Balto, Balto

18:48

the Dog. And you can go see Balto the Dog statue

18:50

in Central Park. And you have seen it, right, Ben, Yes,

18:53

yes, it's still there, still there

18:55

and uh and you know

18:58

a lot of people had There was a little bit of con versity

19:00

over Balto Balto. If you can believe this or not,

19:02

I mean the musher of course, and I don't even remember

19:04

the guy's name it right now, but he's also a

19:06

hero. Um. But there

19:08

was a particular dog and musher

19:11

that they thought should have been given all this credit

19:13

because it was the one that took the most difficult leg

19:15

of the journey. And I don't recall from what town

19:17

to what town that was. I read that yesterday and I should

19:19

have written it down, but I didn't, So it's there.

19:22

There was someone somewhat of a controversy

19:24

between, you know, between Balto and this other dog, because

19:26

this dog just simply was the last one.

19:29

There were twenty along the way

19:31

that that probably deserve equal credit.

19:33

The one you're referring to a dog named Togo.

19:36

Okay and um. He was the lead

19:38

dog for Leonard sa

19:40

Paula, who competed in a

19:42

race that they had sled dog race that they

19:44

had in Alaska pre World War

19:47

One. So he wanted

19:49

the last four times that they did this race,

19:52

it was called the All Alaska Sweep Steaks. Give

19:54

us some background real quick on on what

19:57

Sappola and Togo did. They

20:00

did cover, as you guys said, the most

20:02

hazardous leg of the journey. They

20:04

made a round trip of two sixty one miles

20:07

from Nome to shock Tulik and then

20:09

back to Golovin. And this

20:12

means they delivered the serum a total of

20:14

nine miles, which is almost

20:16

double the distance that any other team

20:18

did. Okay, so they really they put

20:20

it out there, they delivered. Balto

20:23

just had a better pr team. I guess they

20:25

got. They got they were the ones that they

20:27

had finish. Yeah. Yeah, isn't

20:31

there a thing? I mean, it's probably a bumper sticker.

20:33

But you know, unless you're the lead dog, the view

20:35

never changes. Oh that's what did

20:38

you write that? No, that's pretty good. No, well

20:40

it's uh, it's kind of funny too if you think about it.

20:42

It also makes me think that if you're unless you're

20:44

the lead dog, you're always looking at another dog's But

20:46

that's what I mean. Yeah, yeah, that's what That's why I

20:48

always take it. But I think it's it's kind of deeper

20:50

meaning as well. I believe, you know, unless

20:54

bud centric meaning. There's also a

20:56

statue of Balto in downtown Anchorage.

20:59

Can I up you for a second. Okay,

21:01

since we're talking about this, I just have

21:03

to say this one of the most shocking

21:05

parts of the trip that the the

21:08

one mile trip that I was on the

21:11

dogs training camp is that well,

21:13

we're this so gross, and don't

21:15

let this discourage you've from doing this if you get a chance.

21:18

The dogs, well they

21:20

crap while they run. They don't stop,

21:23

so like they don't wait until it's breast time to

21:25

go off in the woods and go they go while they're

21:27

running. And yes,

21:29

and it gets flipped up and you don't

21:31

realize it right as a passenger until

21:33

you're done, and then you're like, what is

21:36

that. You know, you may or may

21:38

not experience this. I don't know. It kind of depends

21:40

on you know, what happens when. But

21:42

these dogs like they just they just go as

21:45

they're like full speed ahead, and of

21:47

course it gets thrown all thrown all over you.

21:51

It's a shocking one. My kid was just, I

21:54

don't know, just upset about that. I

21:57

also was upset. It's not like it's

22:00

it's like, oh, this is so gross. It's

22:02

just like it's like as if somebody was riding

22:04

a bicycle in front of you and you know, mud gets flipped

22:06

up on you or something. It's like little drops of mud

22:08

and rocks and things like that to

22:11

get thrown up. But then you realize later

22:13

like, oh wait a minute, some of that dog crap.

22:16

That's great. Yeah, so just be aware, but don't

22:19

again, don't let that discourage you. Okay, that's incredible

22:21

insight. I'm glad. You know.

22:23

I'm shocked. I didn't think of that, Kurt,

22:25

did you? It

22:29

makes sense. Well, I'm not going to tell my girlfriend

22:31

until we're on the sled and now you know, and

22:34

again maybe just bring some goggles.

22:36

Great, all right, I interrupted.

22:39

That's perfect, and that's valuable information for

22:41

anybody's planning on going

22:43

sledding after hearing this story. So

22:52

we said there were two different kind of competing

22:54

stories, right. Uh. Many

22:56

people will claim that the

22:59

Gnome and from

23:02

is the inspiration for the Iditarod

23:05

that happens annually today.

23:08

We do want to say one other thing about the Nome

23:10

run. They helped

23:12

inspire an inoculation

23:15

campaign throughout the US for diphtherium.

23:19

It's always positive. Yeah, so it even had

23:21

a better ending. There's another story

23:23

that you will find from the Iditarod's own

23:26

website, and it differs. Uh,

23:28

it differs a little

23:30

bit because in

23:34

this version of events, There's

23:36

a guy named Joe Reddington's senor who

23:38

has lived in Alaska, spent a lot of time using

23:41

dog sled teams himself and his day

23:44

to day work. And their

23:46

story is that in nine seventy

23:49

three, uh, Joe

23:51

Reddington launched the

23:53

Iditarod Race as a

23:55

way to preserve the culture of

23:57

dog sledding, especially in

24:00

Alaska. And that's because machines

24:02

were taken over, right, Yeah,

24:04

an Henry situation there for a moment,

24:07

I think so too. Yeah, so we're talking about what

24:09

they call them snow machines. I've heard a lot of people

24:11

call them snow machines, but I've

24:13

always my life called them snowmobiles.

24:16

So snowmobiles are taken over. And and

24:18

I think we can all picture this time and frame. You know, in

24:20

early nineteen seventies, or at least you know of

24:22

them. You've seen snowmobiles

24:24

in that era, and they look essentially like

24:26

they do now. I mean, they're a lot more sleek now, a lot

24:29

more you know, they look like a high powered

24:31

motorcycle now or something. Yeah,

24:33

they are. But but back then, in nineteen

24:36

seventy three, they were finding

24:38

that, Yeah, they've got these machines and they can do

24:40

it, and it's it's easier on you know, of course easier

24:42

on the dogs. Dogs stay at home, you know, by the

24:44

fire or whatever. They do. Um,

24:47

it's faster, but they're not as

24:49

reliable, not nearly as reliable as

24:52

the dogs are. And they found that, you know, we've

24:54

got to preserve this part of our history. It's not just

24:56

for the historical aspect of it. But here's

24:58

something that's gonna work every time, and we know we've

25:00

known it for centuries. Yeah. Yeah,

25:03

the people who are there so

25:08

far before Alaska became a US

25:10

territory, let alone a state, have been dog sledding.

25:13

So Joe eventually gets everybody on board

25:15

with this. The first I Did a Rod race occurs

25:17

in nineteen seventy three. The winner

25:20

is a fellow named Dick will Marth. It

25:22

takes him twenty days, forty

25:25

nine minutes and forty one seconds.

25:28

So that so you will

25:30

also hear um again from

25:32

I Did a Rod. They'll say that the Gnome Run

25:34

of five inspired a different

25:37

race called the Serum Run that

25:39

Joe also started. So

25:42

these these events, there's there's a little

25:44

bit of contradiction there, but every everybody

25:46

agrees on the following fact. The first

25:49

I did a rod race official

25:51

race was in nineteen seventy

25:53

three, which is maybe a little younger

25:55

than I think a lot of people associated

25:58

with because we have to remember, we've

26:01

seen all these images from the eighteen

26:03

hundreds and so of dog

26:05

sled teams, because

26:08

dog sledding had already been very

26:11

well established before someone decided

26:13

to make it a race. Yeah sure, and you know this is

26:15

this is the very public version

26:17

of of dog sledding. Of course, dog sleds, as you

26:19

said, have been used for many, many purposes for centuries

26:22

before this. But but to put it out in front

26:24

of everybody and say, here's here's what we're doing. We're

26:27

doing this incredible test of human endurance.

26:30

I'm gonna say dog endurance too. I mean, I don't

26:32

know if that's not measured often do you

26:36

want to put that? But twenty days, twenty

26:38

days is what it took to make this course. And you

26:41

know, as you can imagine,

26:43

as we'll get too later, that that record has

26:45

has dropped and dropped and dropped, so it's

26:47

it's become much faster race. Um.

26:50

People are getting a lot more competitive about the whole

26:52

thing, and I thought they weren't competitive before. But you

26:54

know how this goes. I mean, this is our quest to the

26:56

four minute mile thing. You know, like when everybody

26:58

was trying to beat the four minute mile and it was like they're shaving

27:00

off, you know, just fractions of a second here and there,

27:03

and finally someone broke it. And then now that's

27:05

been shattered, you know. And when we talk about records

27:07

being shattered, I mean you look back toe

27:10

and the current record, which will tell you later dramatic

27:13

difference, huge, huge difference.

27:15

But it's not so much the

27:18

desire to get there as fast has changed

27:20

or anything like that. It's just that maybe there's some improvements

27:22

in food for the animals. Material

27:26

higher energy, material science is a big thing.

27:28

Um. I don't think aerodynamics

27:30

plays into this really not that much. Um.

27:34

Maybe we'll weigh in on some of these factors

27:37

that we think of have led to greatly

27:39

reduced times prize

27:41

money later in this prize

27:45

prize money is a is a huge kick in the

27:47

butt, isn't it right? It makes it It It makes you get up early in the

27:49

morning and head out and try to make

27:52

it to the next stop. More aerodynamic

27:56

that could be. Yeah, but you know what, you know, what's maybe

27:59

even something else that no

28:01

one has ever really heard of outside of you know, if you're

28:04

I did ride follower, somebody who tracks

28:06

them on GPS every here, and there are people that do that.

28:09

There are two routes. There's one that

28:11

does go through I did arride, the actual

28:13

town if I did ride. And there's another route

28:16

as well, and they run them in different years.

28:18

So there's the there's a North south. There's

28:20

a north route and a south route and

28:23

what is it the the north route I believe is

28:25

run in the even numbered years, okay,

28:28

And and that route the total distance from

28:30

what anchorage to know him uh, somewhere around

28:32

nine hundred and seventy five. That's the

28:35

ballpark because it changes a little bit here and there

28:38

based on current conditions. You know, if there was a rock

28:40

slide or you know whatever of

28:42

snow sometimes makes the change the

28:44

route. Yeah, absolutely, avalanche

28:46

or whatever, bad weather, yeah exactly,

28:49

um uh. And then there's a south route and

28:51

that's run on the odd number years. So in

28:53

twenty nineteen that we ran on the or they

28:55

ran on the south route, and that one's

28:58

a little bit longer. It's nine miles.

29:00

And what I find maybe

29:03

even I keep saying what I find most interesting, but

29:05

it's it's what I find interesting about this is that

29:07

they typically just round the mileage

29:09

up to roughly about a thousand. I think, in fact,

29:11

they go as far as to say a thousand. What's

29:15

what's the significance of that. It's because

29:18

Alaska is the forty nine U. S

29:20

State, so and and in all

29:23

likelihood, and these guys are probably going that far

29:25

or farther. Really, I mean, you have to there's

29:27

gotta be some variants to the trail. Really,

29:29

I mean, like like Kurt was saying, you know,

29:31

the bad weather, can a tree could fall,

29:34

you have to go around and maybe a tree a bad

29:36

example. It's a short distance around,

29:38

but you have to take an alternate route around as long

29:40

as it's allowed. There's there's

29:43

also this idea of distributing

29:45

the impact of the race across these

29:48

small villages by alternating the

29:50

route, because some of these places have you

29:52

know, maybe a few hundred

29:54

inhabitants. So this can be a big

29:56

deal when when folks come through, huge

29:58

economic impact when the

30:01

idea goes through your town the year, right,

30:03

It's it really is because people fly in for

30:05

this. People want to come in for uh

30:07

you know, these these package

30:10

experiences that they purchase. You know, they

30:12

want to ride along with somebody, or they want to

30:14

you know, stay at a certain hotel and watch

30:16

the people come in, or they even get an opportunity

30:18

to sign in some people that are checking in for

30:20

the night. You know, things like that. They offer

30:23

some great perks if

30:25

you want to buy into one of these these package

30:27

deals. But just the overall growth

30:29

of like you know, being able to put these

30:31

people up for the week or however long they're going

30:33

to stay, maybe even longer. The meals that

30:35

they serve, uh, you know, people are buying

30:37

clothing, they're buying souvenirs. Of course, you

30:40

know, it's all kinds of taking

30:42

their own dogs let home. I don't know, oh

30:44

man, don't imagine what an

30:47

amazing president, What

30:49

a useless president if you don't have at

30:51

least like six dogs already.

30:55

But this there is so much more

30:57

to this story. We

30:59

have to decided to make this a

31:01

two part episode, so

31:04

we just it's so weird, you guys.

31:06

We just started getting to the

31:09

specifics of the race. But I think the history

31:11

was interesting. I I learned.

31:14

Uh, I learned several things that I did

31:16

not know. I was barely aware of the

31:18

sweepstakes until you had told

31:20

us about it. Kurt, Uh what

31:23

what's what do you say to this guy's?

31:25

What if we paused our

31:27

story here and

31:29

we return in part two of our

31:32

episode on the idit

31:34

a rod look, taking a closer look

31:36

at the equipment, taking a look at

31:39

some more stuff about the race itself, as

31:41

well as, of course the dogs

31:44

other than Balto and Togo. We barely got

31:46

to them. I also want to mention a few of these rules

31:48

because I went through the entire rule book

31:51

yesterday. I read it's fifteen pages

31:53

and you think that's really boring. But this is not

31:55

a boring rule book. It's interesting. I

31:57

think there's some some standouts here that I want to share

31:59

with our audience and with you guys. I don't know, I'm

32:01

sure if you even know these rules. Um.

32:03

But the equipment, to I mean, the dog sleds

32:06

themselves, there's more to the sled

32:08

than you might think. It's not. It's it's not the simple,

32:11

uh you know, wooden structure that you think

32:13

it is. There's there's far more to it. And

32:15

they're pretty fascinating really, and

32:18

you can learn more. You can

32:20

continue the conversation in part

32:22

two of our upcoming episode, but

32:24

you don't have to wait for that. Just

32:27

just between just between the four

32:29

of us, uh, Kurt, Scott, myself

32:31

and you listening. Uh, you can

32:34

hop onto the internet and

32:36

find us there to continue the conversation.

32:38

We're on Facebook as car Stuff,

32:40

We're on Instagram or on Twitter.

32:43

All the hits, all the good ones,

32:45

and of course we want

32:47

to give a huge thanks to

32:50

all of our regular listeners

32:53

who tuned in. Scott. I don't know if you noticed,

32:56

but on Facebook, Kurt

32:59

and I were getting a lot of people who are starting

33:01

to brew this conspiracy Scott,

33:06

where you'll hiding. Scott, Well,

33:08

I'm back and I'm safe and uh, and

33:10

I was in no danger, no danger, So

33:13

conspiracy theorists you can rest easy, right, all

33:17

right, We'll well, I guess we'll check in with you next time.

33:20

And uh, and thanks for listening to everybody. We appreciate it.

33:25

Car Stuff is a production of I Heeart Radios.

33:27

How Stuff Works. For more podcasts

33:30

from my Heart Radio, visit the i

33:32

Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

33:35

or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,