24 hours of Confusion – The pack thins out.

Mitch Seavey and Hugh Neff were the first to fly through Takotna this morning around 7am, however Lance Mackey got in about 5 and a half hours earlier and decided to stay a while. This is the point in the race more than ever when the standings on the Iditarod website are nothing other than deceiving. Mushers are taking longer rests, and are contimplating when and where to take their 24-hour layovers. There are a few manditory rests on the Iditarod, one is a 24-hour break that you can take anywhere you want, there is another 8-hour layover that you must take at one of the checkpoints along the Yukon, and another 8-hour layover you take in the village of White Mountain before heading into Nome. Some mushers will start taking the longest layover earlier, like in McGrath and others will wait for Takotna, Cripple or even Ruby. The other big factor to remember when thinking about when mushers take their 24-hour layover is that it is during this time that they makeup for the difference at the starting line. The musher who left last, will only spend 24 hours, while the musher who left first will spend an extra 3 hours hanging out at the checkpoint to make up for the time they were given at the beginning of the race.

Going into Takotna this morning Lance Mackey, Jeff King and Kjetil Backen all arrived within a half hour of each other, which is pretty much a virtual tie for first place in a long distance race like this, when you take into account the fact that King and Mackey’s bib numbers are much higher than Backens and that they will have to spend at least an hour longer at the 24-hour layover than he will, you can really see how this is anyone’s race right now. However, the lead pack is starting to thin out a little bit more now than it was at this time yesterday. Coming into Takotna the top ten were separated by about 7 hours, whereas yesterday the top 20 were within 6 hours of one another.

Lance Mackey, Jeff King, and Kjetil Backen have all declared their 24-hour layover in Takotna, but don’t have to take it, they could decided at anytime to continue up the trail onto the next checkpoint. However, most likely look for Backen to be the first leaving early tomorrow morning… and look for Seavey and Neff to probably stop in Ophir where both of them have taken their 24’s before.