As Lance Mackey rolls into Eagle Island continuing his steady 6-7mph pace, it looks as if he has a lead that is getting tougher to challenge. The two teams who were previously leading the race and now running behind Mackey, Aaron Burmeister and Sebastian Schnuelle will see the lead they built up, slowly start to fade away over the next day as they take a manditory 8-hour layover on one of the two remaining Yukon River checkpoints. Mackey has already taken his and he’s 30 miles ahead of them, but so have the teams running right behind them – Hugh Neff, Mitch Seavey, and Jeff King.
The question now shifts to if either Seavey, King, or Neff will be able to make up the distance between them, and Lance Mackey. Hugh Neff is facing some pretty formitable competitors in a hunt for his first victory, Jeff King is searching for a 5th Iditarod Championship, and Mitch Seavey is looking for his second.
It’s becoming clear going into Eagle Island that teams are running a little bit quicker than in years past. General wisdom says sometime on Sunday is when the town of Unalakleet usually expects the first musher to reach the coast, and the last few years it hasn’t been uncommon to see a team come in closer to sundown. The pastor of Unalakleet Covenant Church told me once as long as it isn’t during the church’s morning services, he doesn’t have a preference as to the time of day – but its looking like Lance could possibly interrupt a sunday morning sermon if he isn’t careful.
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March 14, 2009 at 8:30 am
this race has become very interesting as the other 3 behind mackey have good speed as well…..