Steer into Ophir first
Published: March 7, 2007
Last Modified: March 14, 2007 at 06:39 PM
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Bob Hallinen / Anchorage Daily News
Iditarod rookie Andrew Angstman of Bethel leaves the Rainy Pass checkpoint as the sun comes over the mountains on Tuesday March 6, 2007.
Standings
| Rank | Musher (bib) |
|---|---|
| 1 | Lance Mackey ( 13) |
| 2 | Paul Gebhardt ( 10) |
| 3 | Zack Steer ( 7) |
| 4 | Martin Buser ( 19) |
| 5 | Jeff King ( 31) |
| 6 | Ed Iten ( 30) |
| 7 | Ken Anderson ( 54) |
| 8 | John Baker ( 48) |
| 9 | Mitch Seavey ( 20) |
| 10 | Tollef Monson ( 75) |
Standing provided by iditarod.com
© 2007 Iditarod Trail Committee, Inc.
Young Zach Steer led a pair of Iditarod mushers with eight championships between them into the ghost town of Ophir early Wednesday morning.
Steer, the 33-year-old owner of Sheep Mountain Lodge, was the first into Ophir at 2:47 a.m., forging a lead of one hour, 18 minutes over defending champion Jeff King.
Martin Buser of Big Lake, like King a four-time champion, was 28 minutes back of the musher from Denali Park.
Steer had made the 38-mile run from Takotna in 2 hours, 38 minutes and was moving well -- though not quite as well as Buser, who continued to have the most speed of the frontrunners. Buser averaged a brisk 11.36 mph on the run to Ophir, taking 2 hours, 12 minutes to make the run; King and Steer both clocked 2 hours, 38 minutes.
Ophir takes its name from a nearby placer mining creek. At the turn of the century, it was in the middle of a bustling gold mining district.
Compared to King and Buser, champions whose Iditarod careers stretch back decades, Steer is a neophyte. In three previous Iditarods, his best finish was 14th in 2000.
Known as a smart racer, Steer began mushing in 1997, working with fellow Iditarod musher Robert Buntzen of Anchorage. The pair has built a solid team of performance canines, and clearly Steer was running the best of the lot in this race. Buntzen was 49th Wednesday morning.
None of the top racers have taken their 24-hour layover yet. Each musher must take one of those someplace between Willow and Nome.
Earlier, Lance Mackey of Fairbanks, coming off a commanding victory in the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race, had grabbed the lead coming off the Farewell Burn, a rugged 80-mile stretch that includes frozen tussocks, ice and bare ground.
Mackey is trying to win the 1,100-mile race and follow in the footsteps of his father, Dick, and brother, Rick, who won the race in 1978 and 1983 respectively.
"Things are looking good," Mackey said when he arrived at the Nikolai checkpoint.
Mackey, who had not slept since the start of the race in Willow on Sunday, took time in Nikolai to rest himself and his team.
Mackey said his chances of winning had just improved with two top mushers out of the race after getting injured in what is proving to be one of the roughest races in years.
Four-time champion Doug Swingley, 53, of Lincoln, Mont., scratched after taking a spill and getting injured in a stretch of icy trail a few miles before Rainy Pass in the Alaska Range. Swingley was second last year.
DeeDee Jonrowe, 53, who finished fourth last year, also bowed out on Monday after taking several nasty falls on the same section of trail between Finger Lake and Rainy Pass.
Aliy Zirkle, 37, of Two Rivers said the trail is treacherous this year.
"I was lucky. That is the only thing I can say," she said. "Somebody is going to get hurt."
Rookie Sigrid Ekran of Norway, a student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, arrived in Nikolai with a broken nose. Her sled flipped on the trail going down to Rohn.
"I flipped over and I couldn't see anything," she said.
After breaking her nose and banging up her sled, Ekran was thinking positively. "Now, I'm thinking nothing will go wrong anymore," she said.
Paul Gebhardt, 50, of Kasilof, who finished third last year and was runner-up in 2000, was second into Nikolai. He said he took a bunch of spills on 25 miles of trail that was nothing but tussocks.
"It was really rough," he said. "You would slip and then slide into the trees and off the trail."
Gebhardt said the frigid winds this year, which were pushing nighttime well below zero, also are making for a miserable run.
"It seems like it has been in our face the whole time," he said.
Mackey also said the trail was extremely rough.
"Oh I haven't had a lot of fun," he said, as he put down straw beds for his dogs and fed them a gruel of lamb, beef, fish oil and kibble.
Mackey busted a sled runner when it tipped over going through moguls and around S-turns. He put together a temporary fix using a piece from a wooden cross-country ski. The fix held for about 2½ hours.
"It worked perfect but just not long enough," he said.
For the rest of the ride into Nikolai, Mackey said he just tried to keep going and figure out how to ride a sled with one good runner.
Mackey won the 1,000-mile Quest for the third time two weeks ago.
More
Ekran is Iditarod rookie of the year
Brooks disqualified from Iditarod
Iditarod dog death under investigation
Mackey makes history with Iditarod win
‹ With final surge, Steer nails down 3rd place
‹ Gebhardt chases Mackey to Nome; four rest in White Mountain
