Howdy!... Macgellan here!
Like many of you, I've been following the CB300 with great interest all day. The CB300 crew is doing a great job of updating the race stats, especially considering all the challenges they face with communications and internet access in remote Alaska.
From a fan's perspective, all that data on all those tables can get pretty confusing.
Besides all the in/out times to compare and calculate, the staggered starts cause a "time differential" for each musher that must be made up during their mandatory 8-hour rest. Plus, mushers take their total 18 hours of required rest at all different places. As a result, it doesn't always matter where the teams are, or when they're there.
I suggest that if you're trying to figure out how the race is shaping up -- or even just to get a grip on a simple "leader board" -- simplicity is the key. By the time the race is over, all the start-time differentials and accumulated rests will work themselves out. In the end, they're the same for everybody.
The only data that really matters are the run-times between checkpoints, and their overall, accumulated total for a team. Bottom line: Whichever team covers the distances between checkpoints the fastest will win the race. All that other stuff is just, well, stuff.
To analyze races, I build a simple spreadsheet that calculates run times between checkpoints and accumulates those times for the overall race. I then sort the table from shortest to longest time. Whoever is going the fastest is doing the best. So simple, right?
Here is my spreadsheet so far, for the top 20 teams. So far it's pretty simple and straightforward: Allen's SPK Black Team was fastest over the first run from the start to Chisto. There's not much else to say at this point, besides "Go SPK!"
You all know that Allen loves the CB300 and is always a dominant competitor. The first run this year -- from Glenallen to Chisto -- is pretty straightforward, so it's not surprising that he's really cruising. The next leg over the mountains to Paxson is typically much more challenging, an opportunity for him and the Black Team to really power down!
I hope this little "analysis" is helpful to you, and I'll try to post a couple of updates as the race progresses!
