IDITAROD: Special Coverage from APRN

[Be sure to read the UPDATES at the bottom of this post.]

Ramy Brooks arrived in Nome in 12th place this year, ahead of former champion Robert Sorlie as well as seasoned pros Aaron Burmeister and Jason Barron. But the leaderboard this morning tells a different story — Brooks now appears to have arrived in 15th place, behind Sorlie, Burmeister and Barron. What happened?

Race officials held Brooks’ finishing time in Nome in the wake of a dog death on his team, pending the outcome of a gross necropsy. Kate, a 3-year old female, died on the trail between the White Mountain and Safety checkpoints.

• Iditarod initial press release about dog death
• Iditarod updated press release following gross necropsy

Continue reading ‘Brooks’ race finish dropped from 12th to 15th, 23 teams into Nome so far’

Lance Mackey, winner of the 2007 Yukon Quest — a 1,000-mile dog sled race between Whitehorse, YT and Fairbanks, AK — is now poised to take the 2007 Iditarod, another 1,000-mile dog sled race. The Yukon Quest ended on February 9. The Iditarod looks to be finished today, March 13. And yes, 13 is the lucky number, as reported by the Crow Village Iditarod Blog last week:

Continue reading ‘Mackey poised to take the 2007 Iditarod championship’

Lance Mackey took the halfway gold just after midnight this morning, surprising no one by being the first into the ghost town of Iditarod. But Paul Gebhart was there just six minutes behind him.

Chasing those two out of Ophir are former champion Mitch Seavey and Ed Iten, who left two and a quarter hours behind Gebhart. Cym Smyth and Tollef Monsen left Ophir another two and a quarter hours behind them. Ramey Smyth has also left Ophir and, like the rest of this leading pack, has not yet taken his mandatory 24-hour layover.

Coming off their layovers this morning in Ophir are Jeff King, Martin Buser, and Zack Steer.

John Baker is on his way into Ophir after taking his 24 in McGrath. This afternoon in Ophir, Jim Lanier and Robert Sorlie of Norway will come off their 24’s.

Another Norwegian musher is staying in the top 20, so far leading the race for Rookie of the Year. She is the latest contender to come out of Team Norway, by way of Kotzebue. [Play the audio to hear APRN Iditarod Trail Reporter Ellen Lockyer's chat with Sigrid Ekran].

Resting strategy begins to play into the race as the front running pack hopes it got far enough ahead that their layovers won’t leave them too far behind. A large number of teams chose to lay over in Takotna, making them appear to be further behind than they actually are. The first group of those includes Jason Barron, now down to 11 dogs, Aliy Zirkle, Ken Anderson, Ramy Brooks, and Aaron Burmeister.

In addition to layovers, dog count becomes important now. Lance Mackey came into the halfway point with 15 of his original 16 dogs, Paul Gebhart with 14. Cim Smyth, Tollef Monsen and Ramey Smyth are each down to 13. Ed Iten has 15 and Mitch Seavey has 14 while Jeff King is still running with all 16 of his dogs. Martin Buser and Zack Steer have 15. Jim Lanier has 14 dogs, and Robert Sorlie 13.

68 teams remain in the race. The Red Lantern, currently held by Deborah Molburg Bicknell, has yet to arrive in Rohn. The list of mushers who scratched grew to ten yesterday. Perry Solmonson and rookie Scott White called it quits.

The race continues at a record pace, despite punishing trail conditions that forced more than half a dozen to scratch in the Alaska Range. Three teams pulled into Ophir between 2 and 4:30 this morning, with Zack Steer in the lead by more than an hour. He was followed by Jeff King. Both took 2 hours and 38 minutes for that short leg of the trail. Martin Buser’s team made the run in just 2 hours and 12 minutes (about 11 mph).

Buser continues his strategy of staying with the front pack in the race. He made it through conditions that took out a number of veterans by destroying their sleds or beating them up.

Lance Mackey remains a top competitor as the next musher out of Takotna, just under two hours behind Martin Buser’s departure. Mackey had been running with 16 dogs all the way from the Willow restart, but finally dropped one dog in Takotna. Meanwhile Jeff King, already resting at Ophir, still had his full team on the line. Out of the top 15 teams on the leaderboard, only King and Ed Iten were running with 16 dogs as of this report.

In to Takotna early this morning, in order, were Jason Barron, Paul Gebhart, Aliy Zirkle, Mitch Seavey, Ed Iten, Tolef Monson, Ken Anderson, Ramy Brooks and Aaron Burmeister. John Baker arrived at McGrath just after 11:30 last night. Tolef Monsen, running his puppy team, is now ahead of him. Jim Lanier was in at 1:47 a.m., followed by Robert Sorlie, Hans Gatt, Cim Smyth, Rick Swenson and Tim Osmar.

Back at Rainy Pass, one more musher dropped out: Tom Roig, rookie racer from Ohio. Roig suffered serious sled damage like many other teams, and cited “team welfare” as a reason for scratching.