Clearwater to host dryland dog sled race

Since starting her mushing career in 2006, Mariah Ahlert has raced in places like Montana, Wisconsin and Minnesota races in Frazee and Bemidji.

This weekend, Ahlert will race much closer to home.

At 10 a.m. Saturday, Warner Lake County Park near Clearwater will host the East Meets West Dryland Championships, a two-day dog sled racing event. Racing continues at 9 a.m. on Sunday.

"It's so much nicer because you don't have to take off school and I don't have to pack; I just have to have my stuff all ready to go in my trailer," said Ahlert, a junior at Technical High School. "Helps with the expense and the dogs."

The race comes to Clearwater after being hosted at Brainerd International Raceway. Once Brainerd decided to no longer host the event, dog-racing fans in Central Minnesota pushed to bring it closer.

"When they (Brainerd) weren't able to work out something, we pitched it to the city of Clearwater and brought it as a business opportunity," said Monica Jendro, the East Meets West race coordinator.

Jendro also got the support of the International Sled Dog Racing Association. Joel Nelson, a 20-year musher from Clear Lake, also promoted the sport in Clearwater.

"It'll be a great weekend, super family-friendly event, totally free to go out and see it."

"Bringing (dryland racing) into central Minnesota seemed to be an excellent fit," said Nelson, the grand marshal of the Dryland Championships. "We met with Stearns County park (department), and we got an absolutely beautiful venue."

The community has supported the new event. Among the sponsors for East Meets West are the Clearwater Travel Plaza, Bernick's and St. Cloud State University radio station KVSC. With the help of the sponsors and race organizers, the weekend will have a purse of $10,000.

"My eyes have been opened by how many people it takes to run something like this," Jendro said.

One of the biggest helping hands has been Ahlert's uncle, Nelson. Before retiring from racing, Nelson helped spark his niece's interest in mushing after the Ahlert family moved to St. Augusta from Ohio three years ago.

"I'm a big animal lover. He hooked me up as a jockey for a few of his teams," Ahlert said. She, along with her pack of Scandinavian hounds, will run the adult six-dog rig, the East Meets West's biggest race. The race will have a purse of $2,500, with $625 going to the winner.

"This is the first year with my own team; last year I ran other people's teams that needed a jockey."

In total, the East Meets West Dryland Championships will have eight races. Other events include a food shelf and a fun run.

Sixty racers were signed up as of Tuesday, but Nelson is projecting more than 80 racers will register before Saturday. Racers are arriving from as far east as New York, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, as far north as Quebec and as far south as Oklahoma.

A fair share of mushers will come from the St. Cloud area. According to Nelson, about 30 mushers live within a 20-mile radius of St. Cloud.

"It's an underground group of people," he said. "We had over 100 dogs and four other mushers that were running dogs in a half-mile (of my home)."

The racers come from all over, but the friendliness and camaraderie of the riders is what draws mushers like Ahlert to the sport.

"I love these events because of how accessible the mushers are," Ahlert said. "One race I was in, a racer broke a wheel on their cart; the next morning, three wheels showed up at her trailer from other racers."

"People can talk to people who are racing," Jendro said. "It's not like you're miles away like a football or baseball game - you're right there."

Spectators will have an opportunity to meet the racers with a Meet the Mushers dinner at 5 p.m. Saturday.

Jendro hopes the interest shown in the Dryland Championships this weekend will make the races a yearly event.

"It'll be a great weekend, super family-friendly event, totally free to go out and see it," Jendro said. "It should be a really competitive event."

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Information from: St. Cloud Times, http://www.sctimes.com

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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