Seavey dogs King in final miles of All Alaska Sweepstakes
Published Friday, March 28, 2008
Jeff King is once again neck and neck with another musher heading toward Nome in the final stretch of a classic Alaskan sled dog race.
This time, the details are telling. The race is the centennial anniversary of the historic All Alaska Sweepstakes with a winner-take-all purse of $100,000. And, King is in the lead, by mere minutes, over another Iditarod champion. But it’s Mitch Seavey, not Lance Mackey dogging King’s heels on the trail. A winner is expected tonight between 11 p.m. and 1 a.m.
King was reported in at the Solomon checkpoint at 7:34 p.m. Friday, followed one minute later by Seavey, who won the Iditarod in 2004.
Mackey won the 2008 Iditarod after sneaking out on Jeff King as he took a nap at a checkpoint. Friday, as of 8:30 p.m., Mackey was at least an hour behind.
The Sweepstakes is a 408-mile round-trip race from Nome to Candle on the Seward Peninsula. Sixteen mushers entered the race, which began March 26 in Nome and rolls through wild, windswept terrain and remote gold rush ghost towns. Two mushers, Hugh Neff and Mike Santos have scratched.
Comments
All of King's horses and all of King's men, couldn't hold off Mitch Seavey again.(Iditarod 2004) How sweet it is to see the "face" of Alaska dog drivers come up short one more time down the stretch.
I cannot fathom how this trail marker thief has come to represent all that's good and honorable about the state sport of our great land.
Congratulations to Mitch and his team on a fabulous race, and a well-deserved place in Alaskan dog racing lore.
d_bones: I only started following this sport recently. Could you tell me more about King and his alleged trail marker stealing? I thought that he was playing a bit of dirty game against Mackey in the Iditarod (following, in plain sight, for several days when he clearly could have taken the lead), and I liked the way that Mackey finally burned him, so I'd love to hear more about this.
Post a comment
Commenting requires registration.