Husky News

Ken Anderson had already been mushing for 10 1/2 hours as he approached the McCabe Creek dog drop with Lance Mackey out of sight but hot on his tail.

He kept on going.

“It was my only chance to make a big move and I guess I just figured I had to try,” Anderson said a bit groggily after catching a few hours of sleep. “That was my hope, that he would camp somewhere, or I would just outrun him on these flatter, harder, faster trails.”

Behind sister leaders Okayo and Django, Anderson completed a 16-hour, 115-mile run by arriving in Carmacks at 10:40 a.m.

Mackey, whose run was about 90 minutes shorter because he’d last camped a little further up the trail than Anderson had, arrived at the penultimate checkpoint just three minutes after his next-door neighbor in Fox.

“It sure was disappointing to come into the checkpoint, look around the corner, and there he is back there,” Anderson said.

Barely 200 miles from the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race finish line, Mackey had little choice but to follow.

“Basically, my competition was a little antsy and he didn’t stop (at McCabe), and I’m not willing to give it away,” said Mackey, who wanted to rest at McCabe, which is 39 miles shy of Carmacks. “I’m going to fight to the very end. If he’s going to win this, he’s damn sure going to earn it.”

It’s starting to look, though, like Mackey is lining up an unprecedented fourth straight title.

Anderson, who has 10 dogs remaining to his competitor’s 12, said Mackey is still in control.

“He has bad luck now and then, but he’s not otherwise going to do something stupid. He’s definitely in the driver’s seat,” Anderson said.

But it was a mistake by Mackey that gave Anderson an opportunity during the last couple of days.

Mackey missed a turn on King Solomon’s Dome near Dawson City on Saturday morning. The blunder cost him three to four hours.

“I’m kickin’ myself in the butt all day,” Mackey said in Carmacks. “I would have been here three hours ago, basically. … Four hours is a lot in a race like this where there’s minimal room for error, and I made a huge one.”

Mackey explained what happened while stopping for a few minutes in Pelly Crossing to grab cached supplies.

“It was my own fault. (I was) running without a headlamp,” he said. “I was enjoying the full-lit moon and went right past the trail markers.”

Mackey was forced to cut some rest to reel Anderson back in with a 10-hour run. After leap-frogging a couple of times, his speedy dogs erased a one-hour deficit at Stepping Stone and then Mackey was content to follow Anderson’s pace on the final stretch to Carmacks.

“It’s always easier to follow a scent, and my thought is: I’m still playing catch-up from lost time out of Dawson,” Mackey said. “So it’s easier for me to trail (him) and kind of save a little of those reserves.”

Anderson passed the Stepping Stone hospitality stop Sunday night hoping Mackey wouldn’t notice.

“He’s pretty savvy. He had (his dogs) right by the trail so they barked, you know, when I went by,” Anderson said during a 15-minute pit stop in Pelly Crossing shortly after midnight Monday morning. “I wanted to sneak by but the checker guy was there.”

They kept an eye on each other in Carmacks, too.

“I’m gonna sleep right next to him, and I’ll even curl up around him if I have to to make sure he don’t go nowhere,” Mackey said. “Because he’s not leaving without me.”

“Every time I’d wake up, I’d make sure he was still over there,” said Anderson, who was also awoken because Mackey suffered leg cramps that left him “screaming.”

The pair left Carmacks virtually together, with Mackey pulling out at 7:20 p.m. and Anderson leaving 10 minutes later.

What’s left in the 1,000-mile race are two more long runs. The first is a 77-mile jaunt to Braeburn Lodge, followed by a mandatory eight-hour break there; the second is a 100-mile race to the Whitehorse finish.

Anderson doesn’t think he can reach Braeburn still tied for first.

“He’ll probably get there ahead of me,” Anderson said. “Because he’s faster than me, and we’ll probably leave (Carmacks) together.”

Both mushers have acknowledged Mackey’s dog team is a little speedier — a difference of maybe 30 minutes over an eight-hour run. Anderson has compensated by resting a little less.

A champion — the winner gets $35,000 and the runner-up $25,000 — should be crowned late tonight or early Wednesday morning.

“Ken’s been mixin’ it up and keepin’ it interesting and keepin’ me on my toes,” Mackey said. “It’s fun. It really is fun.”

Though it didn’t spring him to a lead, Anderson said his dog team is holding together and he doesn’t regret the aggressive push to Carmacks.

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” he said.

Source: Fairbank Daily News-Miner