As of Friday afternoon, the Sweepstakes remains a puzzling cliff-hanger. At this point the three front-runners have all made it into the Council checkpoint, with times as follows:
Jeff King - 47 hours 15 minutes
Mitch Seavey - 47 hours 35 minutes
Lance Mackey - 48 hours 34 minutes
With some 80 miles to go in the race, it still is anyone's race. Sonny Lindner has made it to Boston with a time there of 48 hours 21 minutes. Jim Lanier is in fifth place at Telephone Creek with a time there of 49 hours 44 minutes. These two might have a chance if the three front-runners were to crash and burn; but that now seems unlikely.
One unresolved issue is the starting-time differentials; various rumours have flown around about this, and for some crazy reason the race authorities have chosen not to resolve the question publicly. It was discussed before the race at the closed mushers' meeting, but nobody will talk about just what was decided. The original plan was that the starting-time differentials would be made up at an undisclosed checkpoint; but nobody is sure whether the original plan still applies! It means something in a close race like this, because Seavey and Mackey started 6 minutes apart, with another 4 minutes between Seavey and King, thus 10 minutes between King and Mackey! Incredible as it may seem, ten minutes could be enough to win this race. By delaying the announcement and being so secretive, the race judge is creating a potential for accusations of favouring some particular musher.
Two teams have now scratched. Hugh Neff scratched at Haven and mushed back to Council to await instructions; it now appears that he will mush back to Nome on his own time. Mike Santos scratched at Telephone and his dogs were apparently airlifted back to Nome. As far as is known, both mushers and all their dogs are in satisfactory shape.
Cari Miller, Kristen Bey, Conner Thomas and Jeff Darling have yet to reach the turnaround point at Candle at last report. Ramy Brooks was last reported at First Chance, along with Aaron Burmeister. Ed Iten was last reported at Telephone. Fred Nopoka at Candle.
Just in (at 4:37 pm CST) is the news that Jeff King checked into Timber on the return leg at 13:03 Alaska time, with an accumulated runtime of 50 hours 45 minutes. With 60 miles to go, that gives King an average continuous speed of 6.86 mph -- starting to slow a bit. It is anyone's guess whether the race will continue at the pace it has been run thus far.
It seems obvious that we are looking at a new record for the A.A.S. trail, and that it will probably be something on the order of 60 to 65 hours. If I had to guess, I would say 62 hours. The John Johnson record was over 74 hours; the 1983 time of winner Rick Swenson was around 80 hours.
I'm very glad there are no romanticist SH teams on that trail. If anyone thought about it, perhaps some local-area dog drivers talked turkey to them in private and discouraged any such participation. It should now be obvious that the dogs that run in the teams of King, Mackey, Seavey, and other top mid-distance/long-distance drivers are totally another breed of pup from anything historic. The present-day system of highly-outbred matings and severe culling to the speed curve WORKS; it does what it is supposed to do, it produces dogs that run faster than dogs have ever before run on winter trails. It does a few other things as well, but we'll talk about all that some other time, after the race fever has died away.
Posted by ditkoofseppala at March 28, 2008 02:50 PM