But four-time champion Jeff King of Denali Park, with his full complement of 16 dogs still in harness, was starting to close the gap between the two frontrunners in charge of the 1,100-mile race from Anchorage to Nome.
Into Nulato, a Yukon River village about 350 miles from the Nome finish line, Mackey had exactly a two-hour lead on King. Both mushers had completed both their mandatory 24-hour and 8-hour layovers.
However, King had made the 60-mile mile run from Galena to Nulato more than three hours faster than Mackey, though it's possible Mackey stopped to rest his team enroute -- perhaps several times.
Two other mushers got into Nulato within 14 minutes of each other early Saturday afternoon. The 2004 champion Mitch Seavey arrived at 2:35 p.m. Fellow Kenai Peninsula musher Paul Gebhardt, a two-time runner up, followed at 2:49. Gebhardt was trying to make up for lost time. Earlier, he got turned around mushing into the Cripple checkpoint, a mistake that he said cost him six hours.
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