Swingley maintains slim lead
Associated PressPublished March 9, 2006
NIKOLAI, Alaska - After resting several hours, the Iditarod leaders headed past open swamps Wednesday on a mostly flat and well-traveled trail to the town of McGrath in the 1,100-mile race from Anchorage to Nome.
Four-time winner Doug Swingley of Lincoln, Mont., held his lead as the first musher to leave from the checkpoint in the riverside village of Nikolai. He left Tuesday night, as a steady snowfall coated about 30 other dog teams sleeping on beds of straw next to the Kuskokwim River.
Three-time winner Jeff King of Denali and Aliy Zirkle of Two Rivers followed Swingley out of the checkpoint a short time later to tackle the 50-mile leg to McGrath and another 18 miles to Takotna.
Swingley was the first musher to arrive at Takotna, which is 418 miles from Anchorage. He was followed by King and Zirkle.
Paul Gebhardt was leading the race Tuesday, until he hit a tree at the edge of Farewell Lake and his dog team ran off without him. He caught them 10 miles up the trail and arrived 16th in Nikolai, almost 300 miles into the race.
Nikolai is a town of about 100 people on the banks of the Kuskokwim River. Most mushers believe an arrival in Nikolai means they've come through the toughest parts of the world's longest sled dog race, barring harsh weather on the remaining trail.
Teams have left the challenging Alaska Range and encountered fresh snow, which helped pad some of the bare rock and ice on the 75-mile trail between the cabin checkpoint of Rohn and Nikolai.
"It's actually probably the best I've ever seen it," said Swingley, who has finished 12 Iditarods. "The roughest part of the trail is past. It should be getting a lot easier, on the mushers anyway."
Competitors are passing through 24 checkpoints in wilderness cabins and in some of Alaska's tiniest villages en route to the old gold mining town of Nome on the state's western coast.
Top finishers usually arrive in Nome in nine to 10 days. The fastest time was set in 2002 by four-time winner Martin Buser - 8 days, 22 hours, 46 minutes.
Several multiple winners are running this year, including Buser and the only five-time champ, Rick Swenson. The winner will receive $69,000 and a new truck. The top 30 finishers will split $795,000. Other finishers will split $40,000.
The race commemorates a dogsled relay in 1925 that carried serum 674 miles from Nenana to Nome to stop a diphtheria outbreak. The race officially started Sunday in Willow, 60 miles north of Anchorage.