After a rough beginning to the season in South Central causing races to be canceled or postponed, the Knik 200 is able to run its rescheduled race. The traditional season opener had to push the start back several weeks to try and get some snow on the ground so that trails could be put in. After a deep freeze and finally a dumping (or two) of snow, the race is a GO for Saturday.
One of the big problems with postponing a race is that everyone's schedules get discombobulated. There's an almost unspoken rule of sorts between the races that keeps one major race per weekend in the winter. Unfortunately for the Knik (or any race) to postpone meant that they would have to either take from other races or lose teams to other races depending on how each kennel planned their season.
The Knik went from a full roster with a waitlist to now just fifteen teams are listed on the roster. Not a huge deal all things considered with competing with the very popular Kusko 300 set to take off Friday night, and the Two Rivers 100/200. This may be a good chance for newer kennels and b teams to really have a fantastic placement. It's always good to see the "new guys" do well.
The race has gotten lucky weather wise as this appears to be one of the weekends that the area will have normal winter temps for the teams. With highs in the upper teens and the lows forecasted to be just above 0. Perfect temps for the dogs, and for the bundled up spectators. There's no snow forecasted until possibly Monday, which most if not all teams should be finished will before the snow starts (unless it comes early, which hasn't really been the case this year).
With the small roster, it's anyone's game for the top placings, but there are still some well known names in the mix who are probably thought of at the favorites. We'll take a look at who might be the one's to watch, but really they're ALL worth paying attention to!
**Note Fantasy Mushing is only planning to run an Iditarod game this year, no other races, so no need to run over and create a team.**
Who to watch
Brenda Mackey - Let's not pick her just because of her name. While she does come from Champion bloodlines (as do the dogs) Brenda's no slouch when it comes to mushing dogs. While it's a good guess that Knik is being used to train up and evaluate her team ahead of the Iditarod, if things are going well it wouldn't be surprising to see Brenda let the team cut loose and burn up the trail in front of them.
Eddie Burke Jr - Eddie shared his team line up earlier this week and it looks like he's using this more as a training run for a lot of his younger team with this being their first race. Don't be surprised if he doesn't run a super competitive race, but there's something about Eddie that makes you not want to count him out ever.
Dave Turner - Dave's one of those mushers that if he's in the race, there's a good chance he'll be one of the ones to watch. After running in the Copper Basin the Knik should feel like a vacation (temp wise, anyway).
Hunter Keefe - Hunter's back! After having his season last year derail due to a broken leg in the Kusko last year, Keefe is back! It's unsure what Hunter's hoping to do here on the Knik, but he's a fan favorite and is always one of the fun ones to watch.
Robert Redington - It would feel wrong to not have at least one Redington listed as one to watch in the race dedicated to Robert's grandfather, right? It's also another return of sorts for Robert as he's been away from racing for a couple of years (though we did see him at the ceremonial start of the Iditarod this past year running a team to carry an Iditarider after a last minute WD by another musher).
AddieAnn Randall, Isaac Redington, and Talia Martens could all play spoilers with Randall and Redington most likely vying for top junior musher of the Knik. With Emily Robinson aged out of Junior mushing (and running the Kusko this weekend) it's wide open for juniors as to who will be the next top team.
Make sure to check out the full roster so you can cheer for everyone (go like/follow their socials while you're at it).
How to watch
For those of us who cannot watch in person, there will be a lot of refreshing of internet pages, here's a run down on how you can follow along with this weekend's race. (And good luck to us all with how many races there are to keep track of!)
Official Website
The race had to restructure their organization a couple of years ago and is now under the direction of the Knik Iditarod Trail Blazers, so they have just a page on their site for the race, but it has the rules and basic information. They also have a way to follow the times in and out LIVE via a spreadsheet.
GPS Tracker
What would we do without these little trackers that drive us crazy when they go haywire (I will always blame the aliens), and there's hope of trackers at this race, but at publishing time it has not been confirmed. Trackleaders is once again providing all armchair mushers a way to follow the race, you can catch all the tracker action here.
Social Media
The race is most active on Facebook. The race has not been active on Twitter in years.
For live feeds it may be best to follow the official race page and hope for some feeds there. Kale Casey was supposed to cover the Copper Basin this year but had something come up that made him miss out. There's been no posts by race or Kale to say if he would be in Knik this weekend. If he does end up attending the Knik 200, he'll go live on Facebook!
Julia Redington is a photographer who is often at the race.
Schedule of Events
Friday, January 23, 2026
4:00pm-6:00pm Musher's Dinner and Bib Draw
Saturday, January 24, 2026
8:00am Mandatory Vet Check
11:00am Start
Sunday, January 25, 2026
6:00pm Award Banquet
What are your thoughts on this year's Knik 200? Who do you see taking the big prize? Who are you cheering for? Comment below!
And, as always, you can Buy me a slice of pizza to help keep the blog up and running. It's always appreciated but never expected.
