Because You Should Be Watching

The Iditarod started last Saturday, and the leaders made it to the halfway point last night. Why should you care? Because Lance Mackey, who destroyed the old Yukon Quest record less than a month ago, is IN THE LEAD. And he doesn't have an easy eight hour gap between himself and musher number two. Try eight minutes. Paul Gebhardt (with a 2nd and 3rd Iditarod finish on his record, but no victory) is hot on his tail, coming into the halfway checkpoint at the ghost town of Iditarod only a few minutes behind Mackey and missing out on the $3000-in-gold halfway prize.

The trail is brutal this year (I humbly take back what I said about the Quest being more hard-core than this.) As of last night, fourteen mushers had scratched, many due to broken bones sustained after wiping out into a tree or ice. Several of these were favorites to win, even former champions, narrowing the competitive field at the top significantly within the first twenty four hours of the ten+ day race. Four other front-runners have come into the checkpoint as of ten this morning, and no one has continued down the trail - yet. Mackey and Gebhardt sacrificed a lot for their brutal pace in the first half, and its anyone's guess what will happen next.

Mackey is running his sixth Iditarod this year, wearing bib 13. His father and brother both won their first Iditarod championship on their sixth try, wearing bib 13. He wants this. Bad. He also wants to prove that it is possible to win both the Quest and the Great Race in the same year. He and Gebhardt once trained together in a small town on the Kenai, half an hour from where Peter and I met.

I'm also keeping an eye on Aliy Zirkle. She was the first woman to win the Yukon Quest, and has run the Iditarod since 2001. She was hanging back near fifteenth place until last night, when she began her bid and moved up to ninth in less than half a day. She stopped for only thirteen minutes at the last checkpoint, and clearly has the leaders in her cross-hairs. She currently hails from Two Rivers, a "town" near Fairbanks that Peter and I have driven past (and often missed seeing) several times.

So you should bookmark this Iditarod webpage and check it often. There is a long race ahead, and anything could happen. It could be history, folks.

[Click on '2007 Iditarod' on the main page title bar. Then click on the 'Interactive Trail Map' on the right side-bar. It is a Very Cool Feature.]