It’s so crowded in here!

The confusion on who will be leading two days from now hasn’t let up as an extremely large and competitive field of Iditarod mushers continue to make their way to McGrath Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning. Aaron Burmeister was enjoying what he calls the strongest team he’s ever had as he was leading the pack out of the Nikolai on late Tuesday afternoon, just a few feet behind him was Hugh Neff – Sebastian Schnuelle hopped on the back of his sled just 10 minutes later. These three mushers represent what is often referred to as a group of “young mushers” waiting for their shot at a victory and Iditarod fame. Lance Mackey was once part of that group but two years of consecutive wins have put him in the “establishment” category (the ESPY nominations and Conan O’Brian appearance might have contributed to that as well). Lance isn’t very far behind these three, and neither is Paul Gebhardt or Jeff King. There is no denying the fact that right now it is anyone’s race. Will the leaders start taking their mandatory 24 hour layovers soon? Takotna, and Ophir could be good guesses, but some have been known to push it as far as possible… we do know that where teams start taking their 24 hour rest will play a part in the eventual outcome of the race.

About the Layovers:
There are a few things each team must do in order to complete the Iditarod and among them is completing a series of mandatory layovers. A 24-hour layover must be taken at some point during the race, but can be wherever a musher chooses. An 8-hour layover must be completed at a checkpoint of the mushers choosing along the Yukon River (Anvik to Kaltag), and a final 8-hour layover must be completed in the village of White Mountain before making the final stretch into Nome.

Other names to watch include Bruce Linton, he is doing very well so far in the 20s and running near Linwood Fiedler, Dallas Seavey, and DeeDee Jonrowe. As we mentioned in the podcast Nome’s 19-year old Melissa Owens is rocking the trail in her second Iditarod appearance, shes running in the teens near Rick Swenson, Aliy Zirkle, Cim Smyth, and Jessie Royer.