Posted on 03/15/2009 1:09:27 PM PDT by skeptoid
Heading off the mighty Yukon River into a deep winter chill, two-time defending champion Lance Mackey of Fairbanks on Sunday moved to defend the sizeable lead he built in the middle of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.
His strategy? Be invisible.
Mackey pulled out of Kaltag, the final Yukon River checkpoint, at 3:58 a.m. Sunday - well before dawn and well before the first musher in a group of pursuers arrived.
"If I'm not here it might break their heart a little bit, so I'm going to try and crush their heart," he told the Iditarod Insider Web crew as he left. "I'm not only going to not be here, I'm going to try and put a few miles between us.
(Excerpt) Read more at adn.com ...
A big page of Iditarod articles (newest first) including lots of photos and some vids is http://www.adn.com/iditarod/2009/index.html
Lance Mackey has done his required rest stops and is breaking away with good sled speed.
Here's the interactive Iditarod trail map (NOTE: a 'Kaltag' pop-up may cover the map as the page loads . . just 'x' it).
This previous post is a snapshot of Lance Mackey's Iditarod history
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