About 9:30 this morning Lance Mackey pulled out something special from his dog sled. It was a piece of gear he carefully stashed 939 miles and more than 8 days ago at the Yentna checkpoint. This is required equipment issued to each musher which they are only required to use on the first and last legs of this 1,100-mile race across a rugged and unpopulated Alaska landscape. However Lance has seemingly leveraged a huge advantage from his issue that has eluded all the other mushers. Lance camped out in a Wasilla parking lot for 10 days back in June to be assured he would receive the right one. It was an enormous amount of pride that Lance had as he pulled that Iditarod racer’s bib over his parka this morning and he readied his dog team to begin this last leg in the Iditarod Sled Dog Race to the famous burled arch and brand new pickup waiting for them in Nome. The number on that bib is 13. This is the same number Lance’s father Dick and brother Rick wore to victory in their 6th attempt at the Iditarod, and now Lance is poised to add an amazing chapter to his family’s legacy with a victory in his 6th attempt at the Iditarod. If you ask him, he’ll tell you that it wouldn’t have happened without the right bib. Lance departed the White Mountain checkpoint at 9:38 this morning with a 2 hour 38 minute advantage over Paul Gebhardt. The projected completion time for Lance in Nome is 5:30 this afternoon.
Archive for the 'Iditarod 2007' Category
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’
The winner of the Iditarod Sled Dog Race earns $69,000 and a new Dodge pickup. Lance Mackey claims he needs that new truck more then his competitors. Recently during the long hours on the trail, he has caught himself day dreaming about that new truck. He decided he wanted that truck to be painted special so when people see it, they would know what it meant to him. Lance hasn’t won this race yet, but he’s in a really good position to do so. Mackey has distanced himself from the others with a focused strategy of running long with short rests since leaving the Yukon River. While he is at White Mountain taking his mandatory 8-hour layover, there is no sign yet of his nearest competitor Paul Gebhardt. With 77 miles to go before reaching the burled arch at the Nome finish line, no team has ever made up a deficit of more then 1.5 hours to overcome the leader in the 35 year history of the race.
Besides Gebhardt, Martin Buser, Zack Steer, and Jeff King are all now resigned to the notion that they are battling for positions 2 though 5. A bit further back in the pack, Norwegian born Sigrid Ekran is in leading position for Rookie of the Year honors. She has the backing of Team Norway, and has been working a schedule designed by Kjetil Backen who will be Team Norway’s lead musher next year. She is finally starting to heal from the broken nose and black eyes suffered in a crash way back at Rainy Pass. At the tail end of the pack is Eagle River, Alaska musher Eric Rogers who will earn the Red Lantern award if he has the last team to cross the finish line. Rogers is currently resting his team at Ophir and will need to pick up the pace a bit to avoid being dropped from the race by officials.
Just a brief update… Lance Mackey passed through the Elim checkpoint this evening (Monday) at 6:00 p.m., stopped long enough to drop off a dog (he’s now down to 11), and is now on the trail to White Mountain.
White Mountain, 46 miles from Elim, is the site of a required 8-hour rest for all teams. Strategically it would make no sense to rest at Elim only to stop for 8 hours at White Mountain.
If Mackey can maintain a moderate 7 mph pace (he made 8.42 mph into Elim), he can reach White Mountain around midnight. Eight hours of rest would get him started in the morning for the final 77-mile run to Nome. Again, at a fictional 7 mph he could make Nome in about 11 hours, which would be around 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday.
Just in time to collapse, of course.
Unless Lance Mackey’s team of 12 dogs begins to falter - and they are showing no signs of doing that - there appears to be only one team close enough to catch him. That is the 10 dog team of his former neighbor, Paul Gebhardt. As Gebhardt approached the checkpoint at Koyuk, he caught a glimpse of Mackey’s team on their way out. Mackey had rested his team there for some 3 hours, but Gebhardt figured he could not afford that luxury and still be in contention to win. Gebhardt wasted no time at the checkpoint grabbing a bale of straw, food for the dogs, and fuel for the food. He wont be too far down the trail however before he pulls over for a spell since he loses efficiency carrying the straw on his sled and the afternoon sun will be beating down on his team. Mackey left Koyuk with a 23 minute head start, and will likely gain some more when Gebhardt pulls over. Gebhardt’s team is showing better speed on the trail at this point, but he can’t catch Mackey on speed alone. 48 miles down the trail is the Elim checkpoint where they both might rest again. Meanwhile, Martin Buser, Zack Steer, and Jeff King are all resting their teams in Koyuk. Perhaps they’ll all leave within minutes of each other in a battle to secure 3rd place. Ed Iten who has made a good move towards the front is also resting in Koyuk.
Lance Mackey is holding on to his Iditarod lead, though only barely. The Fairbanks musher left Koyuk at 12:13 this afternoon, followed closely by Paul Gebhardt at 12:36. Martin Buser is in third place. He checked into Koyuk at 1:30. He was followed by Zack Steer at 2:16 and Jeff King at 3:06.
When Mackey first hit the coast in Unalakleet, he was confident his dogs were strong enough to hold onto the lead into Nome. But he says this year’s race has been a tough one. And with Gebhardt nipping at his heels and more than 150 miles to go, there’s no guarantees for Bib 13.
Continue reading ‘Mackey and Gebhardt in struggle for lead and possible victory’
Three-time Iditarod finisher Karen Ramstead opted to cancel her run to Nome today. She scratched from the Grayling checkpoint in western Alaska, about 481 miles from the finish line. She made the decision this morning (3/12) at 7:30 a.m.
The Iditarod Trail Committee, in their official release, claimed her reason for scratching was because she “wanted to be with her family to grieve the loss of one of her team members.”
That summary could mean one of her dogs died or a dog escaped and was lost on the trail. It could also mean a death in the (human) family back home. We’re hoping to get some clarification on this point.
UPDATE: Cathy, writing on the Ramy Brooks web site caught a report from KNOM indicating that “Snickers,” a 6-year old dog on Karen’s team, died today. So that’s the explanation for her scratch. I expect we will have more detailed info later this evening or tomorrow morning.
Lance Mackey spent only 5 minutes at the Shaktoolik checkpoint and proceeded to maintain a 7.5 mile per hour pace to the Koyuk checkpoint. He will likely give his dogs a well deserved rest there and it looks like he can afford it. His closest competitor, Martin Buser, was already more then an hour behind Mackey when he arrived at Shaktoolik and chose to rest for 2.5 hours there. Paul Gebhardt arrived at Shaktoolik before Buser and stayed later taking more then 3.5 hours of rest. Former race leader Jeff King yielded 4th place to the steady Zack Steer by resting a full 5 hours at Shaktoolik. Maybe they thought Mackey was a fool not to rest at Shaktoolik, but by making a strong run to Koyuk, Mackey has effectively put a gap of more then 3 hours over his closest competitor based on their recent running speeds. So while he is resting his team, preparing for the 94 mile jaunt to White Mountain where racers take their mandatory 8 hour layover, the chase pack must be asking themselves why they let this guy make the big break. Obviously they felt their dogs needed the rest.
Can these other teams close that gap if Mackey stays on his 7-8 mile per hour pace? Probably not. Can Mackey maintain that pace with dogs that have been run more then 1,800 miles in the last 3 weeks including the Yukon Quest 1,000-mile race? Lance seems to think so. But at least one of the mushers behind him has revealed some hints about his plan for the later stages of the race. In Unalakleet, Jeff King talked about some anticipated benefit from the high altitude training he utilized with his team this year. He said “Some of the research I’ve done with altitude training, you don’t go into a certain aerobic exercise thinking food is not the limiting factor. It is the limiting factor, not rest. They need food more than rest.” So is Jeff planning to make the 150-mile run from Shaktoolik to White Mountain stopping only for feedings? Nothing like that has ever been attempted, so it certainly would be a big surprise. Even if he did try this radical move, it isn’t enough to catch Mackey before White Mountain. After White Mountain, there are 77 miles of trail to Nome that are typically taken without a break.
With a bib number he is convinced brings him good luck, Lance Mackey — wearing the same bib number 13 that his father and brother wore to win the race — took over the lead of the Iditarod Sled Dog Race by checking into the Shaktoolik checkpoint first at 2:36 this morning. He spent a mere 5 minutes at the checkpoint and then moved on down the trail in a move perhaps calculated to rattle his competitors in this very close race. Kasilof, Alaska musher Paul Gebhardt made a strong move to the front of the pack checking into Shaktoolik at 2:48 before the snow dust had settled from Mackey’s departure 7 minutes earlier. Perhaps he convinced his team that they would get an extra portion of Kenai Peninsula wild salmon fish heads if they arrived at Shaktoolik quickly. Gebhardt apparently has decided to settle into the checkpoint for a rest despite Mackey’s departure.
Tom Feyereisen, author of the Crow Village Iditarod Blog (CVIB), has joined the APRN Iditarod site, offering his race insights and analysis. We’re pleased he’s here, and we’re already enjoying the posts again.
Tom’s site was swamped with traffic over the weekend and, well… as often happens in the world of web hosting, the site was taken offline for being too successful. (Funny how that works, huh?)
While we wait for the CVIB to go live again, Tom’s agreed to hang out with us for a bit, posting his thoughts here, amidst our own coverage. Tom’s posts will carry the byline of “crow village Iditarod blog” under the post title.
Welcome, Tom!