Mushing's 1st family Mackeys pile on the victories

Published: March 14, 2007
Last Modified: March 14, 2007 at 07:16 AM

The Mackey clan might only have won three championships in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, but they have way more than their share of firsts.

Dick Mackey was the first, and so far only, musher to win the race in a photo finish. He edged out Rick Swenson, now a five-time champion, in 1978. The race was so close that Swenson got his dog sled across the finish line first, but judges ruled that Mackey's lead dogs made him the winner by gettting their noses across first.

Rick Mackey, Dick's son, won in 1983 to make Rick and Dick the only father and son to ever win The Last Great Race.

Lance's win this year makes Rick and Lance the only brothers, or in this case half-brothers, to win the race. It also makes Dick the only winner to have two sons win the race.

Bigger than any of that, however, is the first that will belong only to Lance: First musher to win both the 1,000-mile Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race from Whitehorse, Yukon, to Fairbanks, and the 1,100-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race from Anchorage to Nome in the same year.

That had always been thought impossible.

And doing it the way Mackey did it -- with essentially the same team running in both races -- was considered doubly impossible.

First musher to win both races with the same team can go down as another first in a family big on Iditarod firsts.

-- Craig Medred

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‹ With final surge, Steer nails down 3rd place

‹ Gebhardt chases Mackey to Nome; four rest in White Mountain

‹ Mushing's 1st family Mackeys pile on the victories

‹ Photos: The Iditarod

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