FAIRBANKS It took four hours, but by the end of the Yukon Quest's starting banquet all mushers knew their place in the starting line.

The starting banquet, hosted at the Westmark Hotel in downtown Fairbanks, attracted approximately 250 guests to the $45 US-a-head dinner and ceremony.

After the meal of roast beef and chicken, prizes were awarded to mushers who had won the early incentive draw in the summer.

Whitehorse musher Sebastian Schnuelle got his $1,000 US entrance fee back and 500 dog booties.

Russ Bybee of Willow, Alaska received half of his entrance fee back and a parka.

Another Yukon musher, Gerry Willomitzer, won the third draw and won back half of the race cost.

The mushers were then called up to the stage in the order they registered for the race to draw their place on the starting order for Saturday.

The numbers were placed in dog booties that had been lost by teams along the trail in the past.

The drawing of numbers was combined with a Calcutta-style auction that allowed attendees to bid on each musher, stating if they thought the team would have the fastest time into the first checkpoint in Angel Creek, and crossing the finishing line in Whitehorse.

The winnings will be split between the bidder and the Quest.

Three-time Quest champion Hans Gatt drew the largest bid at $675 US bet that he will cross the finish line in the fastest time.

'He's going out as number two and coming in as number one,' said auctioneer Howard Theis.

Gatt will be leaving the starting line in second position.

Whitehorse-area musher Kyla Boivin pulled the dreaded number one from the barrel.

No musher wants to be the first out of the start chute because it involves added pressure and breaking the first part of the trail. Dogs also like to have another team to follow.

'I don't want the one,' Boivin said as she drew the number, only to open the bootie and find it. 'Ah, fó-!' she cursed humorously, and threw the bootie to the ground on stage.

'Yuck, I hate it,' Boivin told the reporters after coming off stage and claiming her bib. 'Who wants to be first?' she asked noticeably more serious tone. 'I don't want to be first, not to start the fó-ing race, anyways.'

Kiara Adams, from Mount Lorne, likes to be first, though.

'I like number one,' she told reporters after she drew position number eight. 'I've got bib number one a lot. I've gone in about 30 races and probably about a quarter of the time I've gone in number one. I like to get it, because it's kind of like luck.'

Adams is one of the youngest mushers to ever run the race. She looked nervous on stage, but told the audience because she is young, she was confident her dogs would take care of her.

'That was probably the most nervous I'll get this whole time,' she said when she got off stage. 'It's over now.'

Another number some don't like to get coming out of the starting gate is 'lucky 13,' said draw host Greg Sellentin, editor-in-chief of Mushing Magazine and Sled Dog Sports.

Veteran musher Michelle Phillips pulled the number as her young son Keegan joined her on stage.

'Actually, when I started the Quest last time I had number 13. It was a good number for me,' she said.

Phillips placed eighth in 2004.

Schnuelle will be running out of the starting chute in the last position number 22.

He said he is comfortable with the position. Twenty-two is a number he has worn before, he said. He has also pulled numbers 21 and 29 in his past three Quests.

'The only thing (I don't like) is that you have to wait and wait at the start line,' he said.

The Red Lantern winner in 2002, Wayne Hall, will move up slightly, at least at the starting line, to position 20.

He said he is also planning to move up in positions when he finishes the race.

'The first time wasn't competitive,' he told the Star. 'I wanted to try to be competitive this time. The first time was for fun. This time's for real.'

Defending champion Lance Mackey was quiet on stage, saying he just wanted a good, clean run.

He drew number six for the starting line and had a $500 US bet placed on his name that he would cross the finish line first.

William Kleedehn, who only came in eight minutes behind Mackey in last year's race, got the second highest bid of the night at $650 US. Kleedehn will be leaving the start line in 15th position.

Rookie musher Saul Turner also had $500 US placed on his head for coming into Whitehorse with the fastest time.

The bid was placed by his father, Quest legend Frank Turner. Frank set a record winning time in 1995 at 10 days, 16 hours and 20 minutes.

Saul seemed reluctant being introduced on stage as a rookie who didn't need introduction. Frank ran the first 22 Quests. This is the first year he's not running.

However, Saul told the audience about 95 per cent of the dogs on his team are from his dad's Muktuk Kennel.

He thanked his father in his short speech and then asked Frank to come to the stage and draw his starting number for him. Number five was pulled.

Saul told reporters he would have preferred to start further down the line in about position 14.

An early start means there are more teams that will be passing him, he said.

'It's just a pain in the butt,' he said. 'The veterans pass you and stuff like that. It's just going to excite the dogs and I'm just going to try to settle them down as much as I can.'

Saul's partner Fabienne Bruelhart travelled to Fairbanks on Thursday so their baby daughter, Myla, will be able to see Saul start his first Quest.

Myla will turn one-month-old when the race starts tomorrow.

In the end, the Calcutta raised $1,500 US in its Angel Creek pot and $4,900 US in its finishing line pot.