Paul Gebhardt was the fourth musher to arrive into Unalakleet this afternoon but after 4 hours of rest, he was the first to leave. Lance Mackey, who was the second to arrive out of the lead pack four got up from his nap first and went outside to start working on his sled before heading out of town for the next checkpoint of Shaktoolik. Lance took his time after he got up, milling around the checkpoint talking with locals, and even taking a few minutes to watch footage of himself as it was being edited for the versus tv network. Paul got up next and was quicker at getting his team ready. Martin Buser and Jeff king left just a little after the first two, all four of them left within an hour of each other.
Both Jeff King & Martin Buser are hoping to win their 5th Iditarod, a number that would tie the current record. Meanwhile, Lance Mackey & Paul Gebhardt are looking to win their 1st, and if you ask Jeff King, it might not be him winning that would be the best story:
(audio interview: “To tell you the truth, i very much want to win this, but if I don’t, I hope Lance does because its a real magical story, and uh.. I think it would be dull if one of us would win it four times, or 5 times as opposed to someone was not supposed to have won it, who wants it that bad….who has a magical run. Ok, there’s a fairy tale ending that doesn’t involve me as much. But thats one of two scenarios I hope plays out over the next two days” - Jeff King)
One thing that we do know is that normally its not to hard to predict a winner at this point in the race, but right now with a top four coming in and leaving so close together….its going to be a tight race all the way to Nome.
On the Iditarod Trail, I’m Josh Rogers