7AM Finger Lake—-Buser continues to lead

It’s a wild morning for mushing fans.  Jeff King, the 4x champ is widely regarded this year as a clear favorite.  He is just to arrive in Finger Lake after taking an obvious rest totaling about 5 hours.

Meanwhile, Martin Buser has just gone through Rainy Pass Checkpoint, scarcely staying two minutes, and appears to have put little or no rest on team. His strategy is totally unique.  No one has tried it before.  Consider it totally out of the box.

  At this time, Martin is well ahead of the field.  For a stark example, consider that King is at mile 108 and Buser is at mile 143, and both guys have won an Iditarod and are planning to win another this year.

Meanwhile, in between King and Buser reside most of our pre race favorites such Dallas and Mitch Seavey, Pete Kaiser, Aliy Zirkle, Aaron Burmeister, Lance Mackey, John Baker et al. Most of them are resting.

When I asked Jake Berkowitz about the field, he commented casually that last year he was hidden in the pack and then gradually worked his way to the front.   “You always have people going out too hard in the front of the race, but you gradually catch them.”

 Circulating around the dog lot, which has now become totally populated as team after team turn off the trail for a rest, I saw Josh Cadzow.  “Last year I completely screwed up and went too fast.  This year I am taking rests and have a really good team.”  Josh is a fast moving slight built guy with a pretty good sense of humor.  When asked about the mushers blazing trail in front of him he indicated complete indifference.

John Baker and Aaron Burmeister were still in finger Lake resting dogs at 8 55AM, while Martin Buser was only about 17 miles from Rohn.  John and Aaron plan to go directly to Rohn , leaving in the next hour.