Catch the Rascal...

In an interview at Unalakleet Jeff King vowed to "Catch the rascal and make this ... a race to remember."  The rascal King was referring to is race leader Lance Mackey, and thus far Lance has thwarted King's attempts to make good on his vow.  As I write the GPS tracker show Lance Mackey traveling 7 miles north of the checkpoint at Shaktoolik, six miles ahead of his rival.  Hans Gatt and Hugh Neff both appear to be resting in Shaktoolik.  Approaching the checkpoint are John Baker, Mitch Seavey, Ken Anderson, Sebastian Schnuelle, and Aliy Zirkle.  Behind Aliy there are 10 other mushers resting at Unalakleet.

The trail between Shaktoolik and Koyuk crosses the sea ice of Norton Bay, and is considered to be a particularly treacherous leg of the trail.  The weather forecast for that region remains quite reasonable, so I'm confident the four leading teams will enjoy fast trails under clear or nearly clear skies.  I have no idea what the ice conditions are on the trail. 

LNAC Results

While I've been stuck in training and the I'rod mushers have been clocking the long miles, the ultra-fast spring dogs ran the Limited North American Championship race in Fairbanks.  Here are the three highest placing teams in each class.  The full results can be seen on the ADMA Website.

SKIJORING

4.5 MILES

TEMP: 3

TRAIL: Good

Day

201

Rebecca Knight

43:33.7

1

202

Greg Jurek

44:42.5

2

203

Becky Voris

47:23.0

3

	4-DOG	4.5 MILES		TEMP: 5		TRAIL: Good
401	Jennifer Sterling						42:38.9	1
403	Mari Hoe-Raitto						43:11.0	2
404	Stacy Lanser						43:14.4	3

6-DOG    7.7 MILES TEMP: 7 TRAIL: Good 602 Ami Gjestson 72:05.8 1 603 Jennifer Sterling 72:36.7     2 605 Eric Lanser 73:23.4 3

8-DOG    12.1 MILES TEMP: 10 TRAIL: Good 1 Jennifer Probert 101:57.7 1 3 Dawn Brown 102:19.4 2 2 Christian Taveau 102:24.2     3

On Wednesday, ADMA will be sponsoring the Jeff Studdert Initational passenger race out at the race grounds.  "Jeff's Race" is a prelude to the world famous ONAC - Open North American Championship.  If you are in the Fairbanks area these races are WELL worth checking out.