More than one in four competitors in this year’s Iditarod are rookie mushers. They include a former Anchorage garbage truck driver, a father-son duo from the East Coast and a Denali climber.
Burke quit his job driving a garbage truck in Anchorage and moved to Nenana to run Burmeister’s dogs. And then he wanted to take it to the next level. He has quickly built a reputation in mid-distance racing by winning the Knik 200 and placing third in the challenging Kuskokwim 300 in Bethel.
Hunter Keefe and his lead dog Senior prepare to run this years race in Wasilla on February 25, 2023. A love for dogs also started early for 25-year-old Bailey Vitello, who was standing on the sled runners at age 3 with his dad Gregg. But 47-year-old Gregg said it was Bailey who suggested they both run the Iditarod together as rookies.
“I’ve kind of just grown into the fact that, like, one day we want to run Iditarod, and it took us a long time and generations of dogs and figuring out what direction we like and how to become a distance musher.” And throughout the years racing and training dogs, Bailey has been studying the sport nonstop.
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