7PM Anchorage—The Inside Story of the Dropped Dog         I’m on my way home and took the afternoon flight from Nome to Anchorage.  Before catching another flight I stopped by the  Millenium Hotel which serves as the Iditarod headquarterters for logistics, communication, and a processing center for outgoing veterinarians, officials, volunteers, AND …

Nome in the dog Yard Teams continue to finish in Nome, so I take a tour around the dog yard.   Here we see the finishing teams resting in neat rows.  The dog yard is laid out logically with long chains stretched end to end in the yard.  All the mushers have tie out cables and …

2PM NOME—-Mushers into Nome, End of the Race Just checked the Iditarod checkpoint times and see 21 mushers already in Nome (mile 936) .  To the rear of the pack, Cyndy Abbott (mile 611) and Bob Chlupach (634) are near Kaltag.  While the air went out of the competitive side of the Iditarod when Mitch …

WE are getting ready for the live finish in Nome.    Our crew in Nome has turned Nome city hall into a production center.  Hopefully you can catch it and see our call on the winner. Anyone with the available tools at the Insider has probably concluded that Mitch held off Aliys challenge, but we have …

7PM Nome  Seavey guards lead One can only conclude that everyone in Nome is turning on the GPS tracker and CRASHING the bandwidth at my hotel room directly across from the Iditarod finish.  I have to be lucky to even get this article to the Iditarod website. In a twist of fate, I bump into …

  3:41PM Nome Bruce Lee, your analyst at the Insider, and I flew over the trail about 2:30 (approximate) to see Mitch SeaVEY still in the lead on the uphill grunt up Topkok Hill .  It appeared to us that she had closed the gap to Seavey. Immediately on landing and getting to the Nugget …

A pod of planes on the river are unloading supplies, so we have another 5 minutes before loading.  “it’s hot out there today in the sun,” says a fan in the checkpoint, a fact that cant be ignore in covering our front runners. With a clear sky, the sun is intense at 2PM.  We can …

13:11PM Seavey and Aliy to Nome Here’s what I saw on the ice with departures of front runners Mitch Seavey and Aliy Zirkle.  The two are basically in a dead heat with Aliy definitely having the momentum— as her team demonstrated more strength last night.   Mitch was determined, brought his dogs to the line and …

11Am Activity in the Front, Zirkle and Mitch prepare for blast off A nerve impulse goes to Mitch and Aliy’s primitive area of the brain, who I imagine have been in a very deep sleep, when the checker gives a “wake up call.”  By force of will, they are to their feet.  I see Aliy …

9:37AM  Joar the Norwegian maintains presence in top Ten Joar Ulsom arrived with ten dogs into the White Mountain Checkpoint.   On the board, that puts him in 6th place. 4th place Dallas Seavey, having arrived at 8:09AM (three hours behind Aliy and his Dad Mitch), was in the checkpoint when I looked out the window …