Iditarod Update – Race Day 7 Late Night
The top 2 are beyond Nulato, 3-9 are in Nulato, and the rest are beyond Galena.
Current standings:
1 Lance Mackey (6)+1½hours
2 Jeff King (11)
3 Mitch Seavey (33)
4 Paul Gebhardt (69)
5 Rick Swenson (61)
6 Hans Gatt (38)
7 Kjetil Backen (42)
8 John Baker (67)
9 Jessie Royer (3)
10 Jim Lanier (4)
11 Ramey Smyth (48)
12 Ken Anderson (9)
13 Martin Buser (13)
14 DeeDee Jonrowe (39)
15 Ed Iten (32)
16 Sigrid Ekran (24)
17 Zack Steer (26)
18 Ray Redington Jr. (49)
19 Sebastian Schnuelle (68)
20 Warren Palfrey (44)
Update: at about 10PM AKST Lance Mackey went through the Kaltag checkpoint with Jeff King about 6 miles behind him on the GPS site.
At 27th place, William Kleedehn (66) is in Galena and still the leading rookie. Rachael Scdoris (55) is beyond Cripple in 66th place. At the back, in 87th place, Deborah Bicknell (21) is on the trail beyond Ophir.
Two more teams have scratched from the race. I’m guessing that Ryan Redington (51) wasn’t satisfied with his remaining 10 dogs at Ruby, and scratched to avoid taking chances with them. The weather and resulting soft trails are really wearing dogs out.
It’s a good bet that John Stetson (87) decided to scratch in Cripple when he learned that his dog, Zaster, had died, probably of pneumonia. He had dropped Zaster for care at Ophir, and was out of contact until Cripple.
Lance Mackey’s lead is dwindling as Jeff King has two more dogs and is running faster. Lance also made a mistake and stopped just short of Nulato for rest. People and dogs are getting tired after a week on the trail.
