The Iditarod front-runners have shuffled around a bit, but not too much. Jeff King is now leading the pack with the next 10 being: Martin Buser, Lance Mackey, Paul Gebhardt, Ken Anderson, Zack Steer, Ed Iten, Ramy Brooks, John Baker, Mitch Seavey and Cim Smith.
The 2 lead rookies are Sigrid Ekran, who broke her nose a couple of days ago and is running 18th, and Silvia Willis, who is running 21st. 63 teams are still in the race.
Lance Mackey could be the surprise winner of the race. The reason it would be a surprise is that a lot of his team is comprised of dogs that ran, and won, the 1,000 Yukon Quest about 3 weeks ago. According to Cabella's Jon Little, the Quest is a long grueling race (although it is shorter milage-wise than the Iditarod), where the Iditarod is more of a speed race. This year's Iditarod is turning into more of a endurance race as teams deal with high head winds and low snow amounts (resulting in rough gong), so Mackey's dog may have an advantage with their experience. I believe I read somewhere that no team has ever won the Iditarod after it has come out of winning the Quest.
Whoever wins, it looks to be race all the way to the end.
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