Iditarod 2011 – Day 5

About a third of the field took their 24-hour layover in Takotna and are back in the race. The top three are going for the Dorothy G. Page Award for the first team to the halfway point, Iditarod this year, and the $3,000 in gold nuggets before taking their “day off”. It would be nice to see Trent win it, after years of slogging along in the back of the pack, especially since he’s a school teacher.

[Update: He did it. Trent Herbst was first into Iditarod! A teacher wins one. His class in Ketchum, Idaho will be celebrating.]

Kelley and Lance are both down to 10 dogs with half the race to go.

Mitch Seavey (28) was withdrawn by race officials at Ophir after severely injuring his hand while slicing open a hay bale to provide bedding for his dogs. He was running 15th at the time.

Beyond Iditarod

1 Sebastian Schnuelle (31)

At Iditarod

2 Trent Herbst (4)
3 Kelley Griffin (20)
4 Martin Buser (11)
5 Hugh Neff (35)
6 Cim Smyth (59)
7 Lance Mackey (17)
8 Michael Williams, Jr. (41)
9 John Baker (53)
10 Hans Gatt (23)
11 Ray Redington, Jr (3)
12 Sonny Lindner (52)
13 Ramey Smyth (30)
14 Dallas Seavey (21)
15 Rick Swenson (49)
16 Robert Bundtzen (10)
17 DeeDee Jonrowe (2)

Beyond Ophir

18 Jessie Royer (58)
19 Sven Haltmann (45)
20 Peter Kaiser (54)
21 Aliy Zirkle (18)
22 Bruce Linton (13)
23 Michelle Phillips (39)
24 Judy Currier (29)
25 Ken Anderson (43)
26 Nicolas Petit (14)^R
27 Karin Hendrickson (37)
28 Matt Hayashida (61)
29 Allen Moore (5)
30 Kristy Berington (7)
31 Newton Marshall (6)
32 Justin Savidis (63)
33 Robert Nelson (51)
34 Paul Johnson (46)
35 Mike Santos (27)^R
36 Kelly Maixner (55)^R
37 Lachlan Clarke (42)

At Ophir

38 Cain Carter (48)^R

Beyond Takotna

39 Magnus Kaltenborn (22)^R
40 Jodi Bailey (16)^R
41 Ed Stielstra (56)

At Takotna

42 Ellen Halverson (26)
43 Scott Janssen (32)^R

Beyond McGrath

44 Billy Snodgrass (24)
45 Gerald Sousa (62)

At McGrath

46 Wattie McDonald (38)
47 Matt Giblin (60)
48 Kirk Barnum (47)
49 G.B. Jones (40)
50 Angie Taggart (19)^R
51 Heather Siirtola (50)
52 Tom Thurston (25)
53 Kris Hoffman (8)^R
54 Brennan Norden (44)^R

Beyond Nikolai

55 James Bardoner (57)^R

• The Mushers in bold are former winners of the Iditarod, the numbers in parentheses are their Bib numbers, and the small “R” indicates a rookie.
• These are the official standings. That means they are official, not that they are correct. Things jump around a lot as people decide to update the standings. This problem is especially bad in the back of the pack, as no one bothers to update those standings when the lead is changing.
• This post will be updated during the day, and the map changed on all posts to reflect the current situation.
• All posts on the Iditarod can be seen by selecting “Iditarod” from the Category box on the right sidebar.