Flash forward 33 years, and a less-brash but perhaps as talented 23-year-old may be in position to swipe Swenson's title as the Iditarod's youngest champion.

Young Dallas Seavey sat at the race's halfway point in Cripple on Thursday, leading the 64 mushers still racing and admiring the $3,000 in gold nuggets he's earned as the first racer to the old abandoned mining town. Seavey arrived at 1:26 a.m. with 13 dogs, just nine minutes before John Baker of Kotzebue pulled in behind him.

Far from hindering him, Seavey sees youth as an advantage.

"These guys all have a lot of history -- with the trail and with the race," he said of the front-runners on Saturday at the ceremonial start in Anchorage. "But we've been around it, we know what to do.

"We can hit it with a little more enthusiasm, without preconceived notions and ideas. We can bring in a lot of fresh stuff because we can look at this race more objectively than traditionally."

In addition to enthusiasm, Seavey brings the experience of growing up in the mushing-crazed household of 2004 champion Mitch Seavey, his dad. During his first two races, starting the day after he turned 18 in 2005, Dallas guided the puppy team from the family kennel to Nome.

Last year, he blended in some top talent from the family kennel with young dogs to vault from 41st place to sixth, easily earning him the race's Most Improved Musher award.

"Yeah, it was sort of a JV team," he said.

This year's should be even better.

Dallas purchased the 16 dogs that started last year for Aaron Burmeister and carried the Nenana musher to a seventh-place finish. Two top-10 kennels rarely get merged that way.

"That gave his kennel an incredible amount of depth," said Burmeister, who is taking a year off from the race and was flying the trail as a spectator on Thursday. "He got some first-class leaders from my kennel, especially Elim, Ursula and Gatt."

Helping the dog power is some noteworthy human power.

In high school, Dallas was No. 8 ranked high school wrestler in the nation in 2003. He went on to earn an athletic scholarship to Northern Michigan University and the chance to train at the U.S. Olympic Education Center's Greco-Roman Wrestling Program.

So when the dogs need a little help, Dallas is a good man to have on the runners.

"He's a very savvy young musher," Burmeister said. "But this is the Iditarod, and anything can happen.

"Being a wrestler who can make it to the top of nationals takes incredible discipline, and he's a very focused and driven young man."

Even though he topped the leaderboard Thursday morning, Dallas is in the middle of his mandatory 24-hour rest. When he comes off it, he should be about 7 1/2 hours behind Jeff King, who took his rest early and is moving like a runaway freight train.

King made the run from Ophir to Cripple nearly three hours faster than the next-fastest team and left Cripple at 5:21 p.m. Thursday to become the first to head toward the Yukon River town of Ruby. Seavey had to continue resting until after 1 a.m. this morning.

If Seavey could somehow catch King, it might set up a fascinating battle -- the oldest Iditarod winner aiming to extend that even further as a 54-year-old vs. the musher aiming to become the race's youngest champ.

"It'll be fun, it'll be interesting," Seavey said on Saturday. "I feel like it's gonna be a horse race (with) a lot of mushers bunched up together.

"That's something that happens when you have a more competitive field. The margin of improvement gets smaller and smaller and so does the gap between each musher. I don't think we're going to see four hours between mushers. I think we're going to see 20-30 minutes between mushers.

"It'll be a race right to the finish line."

And that race could include both Seaveys. What happens if Dallas beats dad?

"I think Mitch would be the happiest dad in the world," Burmeister said. "I don't think it would tweak him at all."

Fielder scratches

Willow musher Linwood Fieldler became the seventh musher to scratch when he bowed out Thursday morning in McGrath. Fielder, the runner-up in 2001, had just 11 dogs left in his team.