Before I get to the story, King & Seavey just left Solomon within minutes of each other, and I just got a report from a pilot that landed a few moments ago that Seavey is now in the lead, he witnessed this from the air, just out of Solomon.
Kudos to Kevin Klott from ADN for reporting the following story:
(http://www.adn.com/sports/story/358945.html)
…..Who gets it done could become an issue tonight.
Perhaps the most interesting twist in this race could unfold when the first musher across the line discovers he has been duped by race organizers. Whoever crosses first underneath the burled arch - the same monument used for the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race — might not be the winner.
“There was a question (at a 3-1/2 hour mushers meeting) about how we were doing the (race) time,” race marshal Al Crane said Wednesday morning.
Mushers asked Crane, “How could you add minutes (secretly) at the checkpoints” to offset the two-minute gaps in the staggered start of 16 teams.
Mushers didn’t understand how easy it was, Crane said, so he told them the time differential wouldn’t be made up at all.
“Nobody is going to screw with the times (on the trail),” Crane said. “I don’t understand why they had a problem with the time differential. OK, the first team that comes back wins. I’ll explain (adding the time) after the fact. Nobody’s going to get hurt by it. (Now) they all have the same strategy - they want to win.”
Mushers thus departed Nome with the idea there would be no time differential, meaning each musher technically left at 10 a.m., despite the two-minute staggered start. Considering there are no mandatory rests, race marshal Al Crane said, there was no place to make up the time.
But really, to keep things fair, Crane said, the time will be made up when each musher crosses the finish line. The winner will be based on the best total elapsed time.
“I don’t want them to know all the information,” Crane said.
Theoretically, of course, whose first across the finish line and who is first on elapsed time might prove a moot point. Of the three frontrunners going for the biggest payout in the history of an Alaska professional sporting event, King left Front Street in Nome only four minutes ahead of Seavey and 10 minutes ahead of Mackey.
Al Crane is not being very smart, he could be setting the race up to get sued. If the times work out just right you could have 2 mushers getting a $100,000 payday EACH and I wouldn’t blame them for bringing a lawsuit. He’d better forget about adding a differential and do what was agreed on by him and the mushers at the meeting.
Left by Bob Jones on March 28th, 2008