The race now comes down to the wire. Close to 250 miles to go when the teams leave Unalakleet. 

Brent Sass is the rabbit. He has a 9 mile lead on Dallas  Seavey and 10 mile lead on Aliy Zirkle. He is traveling about the same speed as Aliy. Dallas, although driving less dogs, is continuously gaining ground. All 3 are hard workers behind the sled and all 3 are pretty much on the same schedule. If Brent sticks to what he has been doing, he should go through Unk and camp out in the hills towards Shaktoolik

Mitch Seavey has the fastest team in the race. His dogs are on fire. He is on a different schedule. For him to keep that speed, he could camp short of Unalakleet, camp out and then go to Shakoolik. Dallas has done that move in the past and it has served him well. Mitch clearly says that he will let the dogs do the work and is not much of a fan of helping them ski poling or pedaling. 

Wade Marrs has left Kaltag on the same schedule as Mitch. Wade is willing to race hard. He told me in Kaltag ,” I have never finished with more than 8 dogs “. He is a lightweight himself and also willing to work very hard. He has kept his runs much shorter than Brent for example, he is on his 14th run, where Brent is on his 11th. Wade said in Kaltag that he plans on breaking this run to Unk in half, with an about 2 hr break in the middle. Time will tell if he sticks to that schedule. Mushers are known to change their minds…

We should see lots of action here in Unalakleet sometime before midnight. Time to get a few hours of sleep. The iron dog is filled up and ready to go!