If I had bet cash money on my predictions of last Friday I think I'd be heading to the bank to make a withdrawal in order to pay my gambling debt. As I write Hans Gatt, Lance Mackey and Hugh Neff are all in the Braeburn checkpoint. Hans arrived first, at 6:18 PST, followed by Lance at 6:53 and Neff at 7:18. There are only 100 miles of relatively easy terrain from Braeburn to Whitehorse, and Hans has a slightly faster team, judging by run times from the past couple of checkpoints.
I'm pretty sure that Hans will have to make at least 1 rest stop for his team of loping dogs, and equally sure that Mackey's trotters can do the run in one long march, but I don't think that Lance can make up enough time to offset Gatt's speed advantage. Not in 100 miles, anyway.
In the race for fourth and fifth place, Zach Steer left Carmacks about an hour and 23 minutes ahead of Ken Anderson. Both teams did run from Pelly Crossing at an average of 8.0 mph. Ken may be able to make up some time on Zach between Carmacks and Braeburn but it will be some time before we know whether he does so.
The leader board shows Sonny Lindner leaving Pelly Crossing at 11:24, followed by Brent Sass at 11:43. Abbie West left at 3:23, but the Live Tracker currently shows Abbie well ahead of Brent. According to the Live Tracker, Josh Cadzow, who left Pelly Crossing at 5:00 has also passed Brent, so my bet is that Brent was camped along the trail when overtaken. There may be a game of "leap frog" happening on the trail back there.
In 10th place, Normand Casavant is currently resting his team at Pelly Crossing.
Although unlikely, if the leading teams keep up the same pace they've run across the last two segments of the race, we could see a winner crossing the finish line by 3 pm (PST) tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment