麻豆社区

Local runners are gearing up for the marquee event of the season, the Klondike Trail of '98 International Road Relay.

Celebrating its 30th year, the annual race which stretches more than 175-kilometre's from Skagway to Whitehorse, is set to kick off tomorrow.

For the last two years a local team, the Scarecrows, has won the race.

The team will be back again this year, hoping to defend their title after winning by more than two hours in 2011.

The second and third place teams were each from Juneau, the C.C Striders and Rain Dogs.

Registration reached capacity last week with 143 teams ready to go.

Some highlights in the line-up includes four youth teams and five women's masters teams.

The first team will depart from Skagway at 7 p.m. (Yukon time) tomorrow night and the Scarecrows will be the last to hit the pavement, leaving at 11:30 p.m.

"We start them so late because they are so fast and end up catching up to everybody anyway,鈥� said Tracey Bilskey, executive director with Sport Yukon.

The Scarecrows will have to find a new team to motivate them once again as the Skinny Ravens, the once dominate Alaskan team that Scarecrow was formed to dethrone, will not be competing.

The first teams are expected to reach the finish line at Rotary Park around 11 a.m. on Saturday.

There they will be greeted by cheering fans and local musicians who will be playing from just after noon to 2 p.m. to celebrate the anniversary of the run.

The party will continue later that night with a dance being held at Mt. Mac.

The race will be put on with the help of 250 volunteers who have dropping by the Sport Yukon building today to get their supplies and begin the construction of their checkpoints.

Some of the volunteers will be competing for the "best dressed鈥� checkpoint.

"They do a great job,鈥� said Bilsky.

"Some of them have been volunteering for 25-plus years.鈥�

The race will also have a new timing system in place this year, similar to the structure used in the Kluane Chilkat International Bike Relay.

"Every runner will carry a chip and hand it off as a baton,鈥� said Bilsky.

"At each checkpoint they plug it into a timing system and we can download all the results once we get wifi in Carcross.鈥�

Manual timing will also be used a back-up but the new system should provide far more efficient and accurate results.

"It will reduce the amount of errors that come with manual input and bring us into the 21st century,鈥� said Bilsky, with a laugh.

Another aspect to the road relay and the community strength behind the event is the Senators Cup.

The award is presented each year to those individuals that have run each leg of the race over the years.

"After a period of time you realize that if you select your legs than you actually run from Skagway to Whitehorse,鈥� said Senator Dan Lang.

"So we started to make that our objective, to do all 10 legs.鈥�

The cup now has more than 100 names and will be adding some more this year.

"Hopefully it's encouraging for people to get them out and stay fit,鈥� said Lang.

"Who knows? Maybe after a period of time we'll have a thousand names on there.鈥�