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Mackey leads charge across Burn

Mike Campbell / Anchorage Daily News

Published: March 4th, 2008 06:50 AM
Last Modified: March 4th, 2008 07:29 AM

Canadian musher Karen Ramstead drives her dog team out of the Finger Lake, Alaska, checkpoint of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race Monday, March 3, 2008.

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Photo by AL GRILLO / Associated Press

Canadian musher Karen Ramstead drives her dog team out of the Finger Lake, Alaska, checkpoint of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race Monday, March 3, 2008.

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Behind 16 dogs charging hard down the trail, defending champion Lance Mackey was back at the front of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race on Tuesday morning.

Mackey led a group assault on the Farewell Burn Tuesday night, as a pack of frontrunners left the abandoned roadhouse in Rohn to make the 80-mile push to the pretty village of Nikolai beside the Salmon River on the far side.

By 4:50 a.m. today, 21 mushers had left Rohn. Always a rugged section of trail, some years it is snow-free for long stretches -- splintering sleds and leaving mushers bruised and vexed. Rough wallows and open water at Bear Creek are a threat. So are the bison that have roamed the Burn since being transplanted there in the 1960s.

This year, however, Iditarod officials have reported more snow than normal in the Burn.

Hugh Neff of Skagway left Rohn two minutes after Mackey. But then there was a gap of 1 hour, 23 minutes until Jeff King of Denali Park joined them.

"I'm more prepared than I've ever been," Mackey said at the Willow restart on Sunday. In the hours before the race began, however, Mackey had to break up a scuffle between two of his stalwarts, Larry and Hobo.

"Larry looks like he's aged in the last week because of it," Mackey said. "He's got battle scars all over his nose. Hobo's got a few little puncture wounds up and down his forearm, which was unfortunate and something of concern."

In harness, however, the dogs appear to be doing fine so far.

The top-10 out of Rohn contain mushers who contend most years -- including four-time champion Jeff King of Denali Park; 2004 champ Mitch Seavey; last year's second- and third-place finishers, Paul Gebhardt and Zack Steer; Norwegian star Kjetil Backen and both Smyth brothers of the Mat-Su, Cim and Ramey.

The surprises were two former Yukon Quest racers -- Neff in second place and Gerry Willomitzer of Whitehorse in ninth. Willomitzer was 30th last year in his rookie Iditarod run.

Neff, meanwhile, has completed three Iditarods, with a best of 19th last year.

But two of the most veteran mushers on the trail appear to be among the fastest in the early stages.

Four-time champion Martin Buser of Big Lake made the run from Rainy Pass to Rohn faster than anyone; he left Rohn at 3:23 this morning, nearly seven hours behind Mackey. And 55-year-old five-time champion Rick Swenson of Two Rivers was only nine minutes slower than Buser on that same stretch to Rohn.

But Mackey is the one who has won three consective races of 1,000 miles or more, and he's the musher nobody wants to let get away.

"This is my job and if I don't do well, I have to get a real job to support my family -- and I don't want to do that," Mackey said.