This is the third year Iditarod officials have gathered the rookies for a briefing months before the start. All we were really able to do is teach them what they'd done wrong,'' said race marshal Mark Nordman of that 24th-hour advice. Now officials hope the rookies take very good notes, apply what they learned, and avoid making those mistakes. It's a good theory. No matter who you are, no matter where you've raced before, there is no such thing as having too much information if you're going to try the Iditarod.
History shows anything can happen on the trail, anything can go wrong, to anybody.
Still, there is a vast difference between an Iditarod rookie and a rookie musher. One woman absorbing info was Aliy Zirkle of Two Rivers, the 2000 champion in the 1,000-mile Yukon Quest. You win the Quest, and you ain't a rookie musher. But Zirkle did not consider herself above this. There's a lot of trials and tribulations I haven't seen,'' she said.