There are a lot of fans rooting here in Unalakleet for Aliy Zirkle. Same as Brent Sass and Dallas Seavey she received a very warm welcome. Rob, who is running coms here in Unalakleet, was also coms in McGrath. He has things dialed in, this is his 8th year doing it. Aliy had a little bit of trouble finding the checkpoint, she had to walk her leaders over on the ice a couple of times.

A quick look back in time. In 2014, Dallas came into Unk at 00.56 in 5th position with 10 dogs and left 2 minutes later. I still remember reporter Emily Schwing running with Dallas the whole 2 minutes he was here. His Dad Mitch came in at 22.07 in 6th place. Aliy Zirkle was 1st into the checkpoint that year 16.39 and left 4 hrs later. That race ended with Dallas first, Aliy second and Mitch third. Considering where Mitch Seavey is sitting now, he will charge hard once he comes through here. in 2014 it was Jeff King, Martin Buser and Sonny Lindner running upfront too, this year it is young Wade Marrs and Brent Sass. 

The Top 5 this year of Brent Sass, Dallas Seavey, Aliy Zirkle, Mitch Seavey and Wade Marrs have separated themselves by a couple of hours from the chase pack led by Pete Kaiser, Noah Burmeister and John Baker. It will now come down to which team can do long runs on the coast and potentially skip checkpoints or only stay very short periods of times in a checkpoint.

Dallas just said to Brent, ” Man, there is this old guy chasing us, we better get some sleep “. Wakeup calls are tricky with the time change, so Dallas asked for a wakeup call 1hr 45 minutes from now.