Iditarod 2013 – Day 5
Lance picked up the Halfway gold pulling into Iditarod first, but he is going to be stopped when Martin comes through. Aaron is his closest challenger more than 5 hours behind. The Joker in the deck is where everyone is when the warm front moves in – that will change everything.
Update: David Sawatzky (56) scratched at McGrath. He finished his 24-hour stop at Nikolai but his puppies didn’t seem happy making the run to McGrath. Actually, the ‘tell’ is how well the dogs eat on the trail. If their eating patterns change, there is something wrong.
Update: Newton Marshall (8) of the Jamaican Dog Sled Team has had to scratch at Nikolai. One of the puppies, May, got loose, and hasn’t been found in more than a day. All dogs have to be accounted for to continue a race, and the effort has shifted to locating May, rather than running a race. Newton seriously loves dogs and works with them in Jamaica, so he would be looking for May even if it wasn’t part of the rules.
Note: at 7:30PM local time it was 42°F in McGrath and 49°F here on the Gulf Coast!
Beyond Iditarod
1 Martin Buser (2)
2 Aliy Zirkle (27)
3 Aaron Burmeister (24)
4 Mitch Seavey (36)
At Iditarod
5 Lance Mackey (5)
6 Sonny Lindner (67)
7 Jeff King (18)
8 Jason Mackey (12)
9 Jake Berkowitz (44)
10 Jim Lanier (59)
11 Nicolas Petit (16)
12 Joar Leifseth Ulson (32)R
13 Ray Redington Jr (52)
14 Paul Gebhardt (11)
15 Jessie Royer (30)
16 DeeDee Jonrowe (28)
17 Dallas Seavey (19)
18 John Baker (13)
Beyond Ophir
19 Matt Failor (61)
20 Peter Kaiser (10)
21 Michelle Phillips (7)
22 Ken Anderson (6)
23 Cim Smyth (51)
24 Brent Sass (62)
25 Justin Savidis (34)
26 Kelly Maixner (25)
27 Gerry Willomitzer (21)
28 Ramey Smyth (38)
29 Kelley Griffin (9)
30 Josh Cadzow (55)Q
31 Jessica Hendricks (54)
32 Michael Williams Jr (46)
33 Robert Bundtzen (23)
34 Allen Moore (48)
35 Aaron Peck (58)
36 Mike Williams Sr (35)
37 Wade Marrs (57)
38 Curt Perano (45)
39 Karin Hendrickson (29)
40 Linwood Fiedler (42)
41 Kristy Berington (20)
42 Anna Berington (31)
43 Richie Diehl (65)R
44 Paige Drobny (14)Q
At Ophir
45 Jodi Bailey (4)
46 Mike Ellis (50)
47 Travis Beals (22)R
48 Matt Giblin (64)
49 Mikhail Telpin (63)Q
Beyond Takotna
50 Rudy Demonski Sr (39)
51 Charley Bejna (15)R
52 Gerald Sousa (49)
At Takotna
53 Cindy Gallea (17)
54 Louie Ambrose (53)R
55 James Volek (66)R
At McGrath
56 Luan Ramos Marques (47)R
57 Angie Taggart (40)
58 Michael Suprenant (33)
59 Jan Steves (26)
60 Bob Chlupach (43)
61 Christine Roalofs (37)R
62 Cindy Abbott (60)R
The Mushers in bold are former winners of the Iditarod, while italics indicates Yukon Quest winners. The numbers in parentheses are their Bib numbers. The small “R” indicates a total rookie, while the small “Q” indicates an Iditarod rookie who has completed a Yukon Quest.
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.
5 comments
After I mentioned how few people scratched, people starting dropping out like flies, just like you thought.
Wonder if Newton found Mae. What a shame for this guy. I noticed that his teammate, Kelley Griffin is still hanging in there at the 30th position as of this morning.
Found a bit more recent info on Mae’s whereabouts. She has been spotted a couple of different times, but would not approach close enough for anyone to bring her in. Turns out that Jim Lanier owns this dog, so his wife is flying in. I think they’re hoping that Mae will come to someone she knows. Saw a picture of Mae on Facebook, and she is one beautiful dog, too.
Then again, I think they’re all beautiful. Some sort of short in my brain, I suppose…
Jim specializes is white dogs and calls his kennel Northern Whites. To each his own, I would think that white dogs would be hard to track in the snow. He does buy them for their looks, so I’m not surprised that Mae is a beautiful dog, most of Jim’s kennel are.
The dogs will normally only approach people they know, and local people do not want stray dogs around as they lack the natural caution of humans that wolves exhibit. Most of them could probably survive in the wild, but that isn’t a sure thing.
Well, everyone loves a pretty dog, but it does seem a strange way to pick a dog when you’re trying to win a sled race. Mae has been spotted several more times but still won’t get near anyone.
In addition, Gerry Willomitzer lost Montego yesterday. There was a confusion on his part that the dog had been taken to the next checkpoint, I think, so he continued forward only to find out that the dog was at the previous checkpoint. It was too late to go back and pick up the dog at Iditarod and still stay in the race, so the Iditarod officials removed him.
Jim is 72 and does this for fun. Actually it was the result of having an all white female who was a good racer at the same time Robert Bundtzen had a good all white male. The 11 puppies were all whites, and that became his signature team and the reason for his Kennel name. He has added all white dogs from other mushers over the years to strengthen the gene pool, and only races those with the ability to run the race and finish, but he concentrates on having a good finish in the money, and won’t take the chances necessary for a win.
Yes, I wrote about Gerry’s problem in today’s post. Montego was picked up by a traveler not associated with the race, and gas is too expensive to vary your route too much. It was a miscommunication to Gerry as to where Montego was going.