Yukon Quest 2013 – Day 9
Misha Pedersen (16) has had leadership problems on her team which led to the very slow run into Dawson. She headed out last night, but had to come back and scratch because the team wouldn’t move into the wind on the Yukon River. Despite the common perception of dogs sticking their heads out of car windows to get the wind in their face, sled dogs generally don’t like it for very real survival reasons. Weather leaders, dogs that will head into the wind and convince the rest of the pack to follow, are very rare, and Misha doesn’t have one.
Dyan is out on the river heading to Eagle alone, and I wish her well. The Quest officials will be watching her because she’s a rookie and the weather is not good. They want to give her a chance, but they are concerned about her team.
Update: Dyan is making good progress on the trail, while at the front Allen and Hugh are basically running side-by-side as they climb Rosebud.
Update: Dyan made it into Eagle, while Allen and Hugh are sitting in Two Rivers/Chena Hot Spring for an 8-hour mandatory stop. Allen has a 16 minute lead for the 45 mile sprint to Fairbanks.
The winner should be known tomorrow morning, but I hang around until the Red Lantern is extinguished.
The Standings at 11:00PM CST (8:00PM AKST):
At Chena Hot Springs/Two Rivers
1 Allen Moore (11)
2 Hugh Neff (4)
Beyond Mile 101
3 Brent Sass (18)
4 Jake Berkowitz (20)
Beyond Central
5 Scott Smith (23)R
Beyond Circle
6 Markus Ingebretsen (2)R
7 Normand Casavant (7)
8 Abbie West (17)
9 Dan Kaduce (15)
10 Susan Rogan (10)R
At Circle
11 David Dalton (21)
12 Ed Hopkins (25)
13 Brian Wilmshurst (1)
14 Crispin Studer (26)
Beyond Eagle
15 Denis Tremblay (13)R
16 Darrin Lee (24)R
17 Cody Strathe (5)R
18 Rob Cooke (3)R
19 Matthew Failor (14)R
At Eagle
20 Dyan Bergen (19)R
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.
The Mushers in bold are former winners of the Yukon Quest, the numbers in parentheses are their Bib numbers, and the small “R” indicates a rookie.
Note: This post will be updated during the day, and the map changed on all posts to reflect the current situation.
All posts on the Yukon Quest can be seen by selecting “Yukon Quest” from the Category box on the right sidebar.
