The following takes place between 10pm and 11pm.
Jack Bauer may be able to save the world in just 24 hours on Fox’s hit TV show, but to mushers competing in the Iditarod 24 hours is just enough time to get some good sleep and rest their dogs. Many top mushers have decided to take their mandatory 24 hour layover in the small checkpoint of Ophir. Zach Steer got in at almost 3am on Wednesday, Jeff King and Martin Buser both got in between 4am and 4:30. Some might speculate that this puts them at a clear advantage over the mushers like Lance Mackey, Paul Gebhardt, Mitch Seavey, and Ed Iten who all arrived significantly later than the leaders, but decided to head on to the halfway point of this year’s race, the ghost town of Iditarod.  Its very rare for the first musher to reach the halfway point to go on and win the race, especially in a year where no one musher has a distinct lead.
Right now with so many mushers doing their 24 hour layover, and others putting it off as long as possible it’s almost impossible to look at the current standings and figure out who the top 10 is. Another thing to keep in mind when looking at the standings is that each musher’s layover is going to be different based on their starting position. The earlier they left the starting chute the longer they have to sit and wait. A musher like Zach Steer who left Willow in 7th position has an extra 2 hour, 32 minutes to add to his mandated layover, and Robert Sorlie who left in 50th position only has an extra 1 hour, 6 minutes to add to his 24 hours. Remember I said there was strategy in picking your starting order?
Look for Paul Gebhardt to keep going after most other contenders pull over for their day long break. For the last few years Paul has marathoned all the way to or past the first checkpoint on the Yukon before taking his 24 hour break.