Burmeister was welcomed by a healthy crowd in Nome, and when asked how the trail was Burmeister replied “Well…it was there!”. All of the mushers arriving into town have been greeted by All Alaska Sweepstakes Queen, Janice Doherty and the members of the queen’s court. In total over $40,000 was raised by the queen’s contest and will be distributed among the top 9 finishers.

The big story of today was the news of Lance Mackey’s collision last night outside of Safety and Cape Nome. We’ve received an update on his dog Zorro who was in the sled bag, and was taken to Anchorage to be treated.

This is the latest coming out of the crew in Anchorage:

The big injuries are 3 broken ribs, and possible damage to Zorro’s spinal cord. At this point Zorro can’t feel his back legs, but can feel his front paws. Doctors aren’t sure if this is due to a spinal injury which could be permanent, or feeling could come back if it was due to spinal swelling. As horrific as these injuries are, they don’t appear to be life threatening… he is being hydrated with IVs at this time.

Finally, many of you are probably reading this on alaskasweepstakesblog.com, and may have never stumbled upon my blog before. I do this same thing during each Iditarod over on my permanent site iditablog.com. If you haven’t done so already, please add me as a bookmark for next year. As I’ve told a few friends, if I’m going to devote so much of my time during these races to writing about and covering them, I might as well have people read it! I appreciate all the new readers who have found me over the last few days.

I’ll be in Nome for a few more days, and will try and keep the information flowing on this historic race as the final mushers make their way to the finish line.

(Aaron Burmeister poses at the finish line with first his trail support team, then the AAS Queen, and Katie Schobert the queen contestant who raised Aaron’s purse, and finally a young fan greets one of Aaron’s dogs in his sled bag)

Last night on his way into the finish line, just minutes after leaving Safety.. 2008 Iditarod & Yukon Quest Champion, Lance Mackey was hit by a snow machine. The machine was traveling at a high rate of speed behind Lance. He flashed his lights and yelled at the driver, but says it didn’t seem to matter. Mackey jumped off the sled just before the snowmachine hit the sled from the rear and ran it over. The machine was lodged into the sled and in his sled bag was his dog Zorro who was sleeping. The first four dogs in his team were sucked under the sled as it flew forward 30 feet and they were scurring and trying to get out, the dog in his bag was trying to figure out what was going on. The snowmachine driver appeared to have been drinking, and was with another driver who assisted Lance in getting the machine off his sled and to get to the dog out. Lance said that Zorro, who was in the bag appeared at the time to ok, and the other four were “scared to death”.

After spending the night in Mackey’s bedroom, vets were called in to check Zorro again. They found broken ribs and are unsure about other injuries. Zorro has been flown to Anchorage for medical attention, and should be there now. His vet bills are already over $1000 just for the medivac to Anchorage. Zorro has also been on IVs, along with some pretty heavy medication since this morning. At this time Mackey says it does not look good. Other dogs may also have some injuries, but none appear life threatening. Lance does not hold the race responsible and has not filed any complaints, nor does he have hard feelings toward the snowmachine driver. Mackey has however, asked for the driver to step forward and publicly apologize. Lance also wants the public to know about this new issue in dog mushing. He isn’t anti-snowmachine (he admits to having a few of his own), but thinks that something has to be done, and it needs to be known that this is happening more and more. In this year’s mushing season alone atleast 3 incidents have been reported, and assuming that Zorro makes it, 2 of those have been deadly.

Zorro was one of Lance’s most famous dogs, and wanted to bring him on the All Alaska Sweepstakes as one final hurah, a historic dog participating in an historic race.

We’ll keep following this story as it develops.

There is a tradgic story coming out about Mackey’s team being hit by a snowmachine outside of Cape Nome…. details are sketchy right now and I’ll try and get a complete story to post as soon as possible, we should be talking to Lance very soon.

Also, King was able to get a few minutes with the media early this morning after coming into Nome and made some fun comments on the All Alaska Sweepstakes, and I’m working on getting some of those typed up.

Here is the current list of mushers into Nome so far:

1. Seavey - 3/28/08 - 23:29
2. King - 3/28/08 - 23:39
3. Mackey - 3/29/08 - 1:59
4. Lindner - 3/29/08 - 5:19
5. Iten - 3/29/08 - 10:37
6. Lanier - 3/29/08 - 10:52
7. Smyth - 3/39/08 - 13:12
8. Brooks - 3/29/08 - around 15:15 (official time not posted yet)

Mitch arrived at 23:29, King arrived at 23:39

Keep looking for more fun things posted over the next few hours.

(click here) to download the audio file

It does a good job of giving you a real feel of the craziness that was happening.

(click here) to download

It was craziness out there….

Madness.

Audio, video, and pictures coming soon…

The good news is: Its being recorded….and the first 10 of you can listen online @ kicy.org.

They were auctioning off Iditarod & Nome memorabilia. I got suckered into buying an Iditarod checkpoint drop sack from Joe Reddington Sr, for $30.

Then King and Seavey hit Safety and I had to leave……

21:06 - King into Safety

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.