the finish line in nome where we expect to see a winner sometime either side of midnight.  Note truck for winner.  Somebody is doing a photo shoot with their rotweiler under the banner

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 Hotel with all of our gear, I checked the tracker and noted that once again we had very slow connectivity.  There is probably enough bandwidth  juice going to the tracker site around the world to power a bullet train.  Any way its slow, and for what its worth it still looks like Seavey is in the lead.  Aliy has not caught him as we expected.

Now, for the issue of passing.  The rules state specifically that a musher approaching within 50 ft can demand the trail.  Here the team being reeled in is obligated to yield the trail.  It seems simple but sometimes it really gets convoluted.  I know because I have been a race marshal in numerous races and it doesn’t matter what you say at a musher meeting or how much you explain this simple concept, something Bizarre always happens.   The passing musher can’t get a leader to pass the forward team, a dog fight erupts, one mushers ice hook accidentally grabs the passed team and drags the sled, the dog teams jump over the towline entangling the other, etc.

The rule states that the team which was passed must remain behind and cannot demand the trail for fifteen minutes.  But again this becomes incredibly subjective when the forward team all of a sudden stops, or the forward team”s leader diverts from the trail to chase a moose, or becomes hopelessly mired in overflow, or a loose pet dog distracts the team, or the team wraps itself around a tree.   The team in the rear cannot be expected to wait fifteen minutes while the forward team sorts out its difficulties, so they often just pass.

Having said that, it will  probably be uneventful if Aliy does decide to pass Seavey. Probably.  Probably, because they both have trained teams.

This rule applies up an until the mushers near the finish and reach the NO MANs LAND, a zone where anything goes as long as you don’t menace another team (cant yell at the other team, intimidate the leaders, shake a ski pole at the other team, etc.)  In order to pass in the NO MANS LAND, you have to have a well trained bomb proof leader that takes the command ON BY and lowers its head and passes without deviation.  Top mushers practice this all the time for this very eventuality in races.

I just looked up the rules and the Iditarod identifies their NO MANS LAND as Ft. Davis— identified with a marker, to the finish line.  To tell you the truth, I am not certain on the distance but I bet it’s at least  3 miles. I have to do some more local information research.  But , anyway, you get the concept.  A good strategy would be to draft off of someone until you are in the NO MANS LAND, whistle up your good leader, pass the team and win the race.

That’s exactly what Dick Mackey did in 1978.  He was Ric Swenson’s shadow for several hundred miles, keeping his lead dog just a few feet from Swenson’s sled.  In the final moments of the race the trail comes off the sea ice, climbs a slip to Main Street  in Nome and continues about 6 city blocks to the finish.  Here Mackey whistled up his dogs and passed Swenson.  In the confusion of spectators, parked cars, and noise the two competitors managed to enter the finish chute together.  Mackey’s lead dog crossed the finish line.  Dick then collapsed from exhaustion (the details of this include the fact he couldn’t get his parka off and was overheating from running), his sled short of the finish line but his lead dog across.   Swenson continued and pushed his sled across the finish line.  Who Won?  It was determined, after much discussion, that the lead dog’s nose determines the winner.  Variously quoted, in essence,  “you don’t judge a horse race by the tail crossing the line.”  Dick’s victory by one second is one of the classic anecdotes of Iditarod History.

Hopefully you have better connectivity, but I read a snapshot position as Mitch 888, Aliy 887 and Nome 936.   Aliy and Mitch are in a virtual dead heat.

Final Thoughts

King does not count himself out.  “I have made up enough time in this race on some runs to win the race.”  No one can afford a disaster.