I’m headed into White Mountain this morning, look for photos this afternoon!

Lance Mackey widened the gap between himself and Paul Gebhardt. Lance Mackey, now into White Mountain as of 1:30 this morning is in a really good position to win this year’s Iditarod Sled Dog Race. Once Mackey got into White Mountain he started his mandatory 8 hour layover, making it impossible for another musher to leave before him. Paul Gebhardt got into the western Alaska village checkpoint three hours later, at 4:15am, making him the only real threat to Lance’s victory. Other mushers contending for 10 ten spots this year includes surprise phenom Zach Steer, and former 4 time Champions Jeff King & Martin Buser. For a long time it looked like we were going to have a record tying 5th Iditarod champion this year with King & Buser leading the race for much of the trail, however even though Jeff King arrived into Unalakleet first on Sunday, he left last out of the lead pack four, and with a team that was more tired than others, was never able to recover and overtake Gebhardt or Mackey. King is now looking at a potential 5th place finish, but he is going to have to fight Iditarod veterans Ed Iten, Ken Anderson, John Baker and Mitch Seavey.

Coming into this year’s race many claimed it was the most competitive field ever in race history, with multiple 4 time champions and a handful of mushers who have never won before, but are still very good this year’s title was not going to be handed over very easily to any one musher. Tough trail conditions caused injuries to a record number of mushers, forcing Iditarod legends Doug Swingley & DeeDee Jonrowe to scratch. Who knows what we would be seeing right now if those to had been able to continue on, but all we can do now is wait for a winner to arrive into Nome, probably around 8 or 9pm this evening.

Posted by admin on Tuesday, March 13th, 2007 at 9:06 am.