Lance Mackey wins second straight Iditarod

Associated Press Writer

NOME, Alaska (AP) — On his way to winning his second consecutive Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, Lance Mackey became annoyed at being closely shadowed by four-time champion Jeff King and his faster team.

So Mackey pulled off a stunt at the Elim checkpoint — 123 miles from the Nome finish line — that proved to be a turning point of sorts.

"I just beat the best musher in the world," the 37-year-old throat cancer survivor from Fairbanks said after he crossed the finish line under Nome's burled arch early Wednesday morning.

King, who last won in 2006, ran most of the race with a full team of 16 dogs that continued to look remarkably fresh and alert as the race progressed. But Mackey struggled with ailing dogs sapped by unseasonably warm weather that marked much of the 1,100-mile trail. Yet there he was, paving the trail while King shrewdly coasted behind him from checkpoint to checkpoint.

Mackey, 37, decided to get creative.

He arrived in Elim three minutes ahead of his 51-year-old rival. He pumped himself with coffee, but made a show of settling in for a nap, telling checkpoint volunteers to wake him in an hour. King also settled in and soon was snoring.

That was Mackey's signal to get going. He snuck out of the checkpoint 70 minutes before his opponent.

King was angry when he woke up to Mackey's "nefarious cunning."

"He baited me to sleep, was waiting until I closed my eyes, knowing it wouldn't be long and I didn't open them until after he got out the door," the Denali Park musher said in White Mountain, where he finally dropped two dogs before heading up the icy Bering Sea coast for the 77-mile homestretch.

"I really didn't think it was going to work," Mackey said moments after crossing the finish line with 11 dogs at 2:46 a.m. ADT Wednesday.

A gleeful Mackey yelled "Yeah, baby!" as he drove his team down Nome's Front Street. Fans mobbed him along the final 10 blocks, whooping and cheering and slapping his hand. They chanted "Mackey, Mackey, Mackey" repeatedly.

"I'm not much to brag very often, but damn, I'm going to this time," said Mackey, whose father and brother are past Iditarod winners. "I don't know exactly how to explain it. I'm just blessed with an incredible dog team."

Wednesday's victory was a repeat of his 2007 feat when he became the first musher to win back-to-back runs in the 1,000-mile Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race and the Iditarod in the same year. Last month, he won his fourth straight Yukon Quest and headed into the Iditarod, aiming for another double win.

Mackey used many of the same dogs that ran the 2007 Iditarod and the Quest this year and last.

For much of this year's Iditarod, he not only tussled for the lead with King. Mackey also struggled with dogs stricken with diarrhea and slowed by higher temperatures than they were used to.

But his team was in noticeably better health in White Mountain, where mushers are required to take an eight-hour break.

"They're the best dogs, hands-down," Mackey said in Nome Wednesday.

Mackey's dogs also quarreled on the trail. He had to drop Hobo — a leader Mackey called the speed and driving force of the team — who was badly injured in an ongoing rivalry with Larry, another leader considered the brains of the pack. Some of his dogs were coughing and one was in heat.

"It took a little effort to get to the finish line," said Mackey, who completed the trek across some of Alaska's harshest terrain in just under nine and a half days.

When King crossed the finish line at 4:05 a.m. Wednesday to take second place, a grinning Mackey was there to shake his hand.

"It was tough competition, but an easy race," King said at the burled arch.

Fourteen mushers have scratched since the start of the Iditarod and one has been withdrawn. Counting Mackey and King, 82 mushers were left in the running.

Three dogs have died in this year's race, including a 3-year-old female struck by a snowmobile. On Tuesday, a 4-year-old male from the team of Kotzebue veteran Ed Iten died between the Elim and White Mountain checkpoints. A necropsy will be conducted in an attempt to determine the cause of death of the dog, named Cargo, Iditarod officials said.

Organizers this year introduced a new tracking system that let fans follow online the real-time progress of 18 top mushers. Officials hope to expand the system to all participants in future races. Mackey and King each carried one of the devices.

In its 36th running, the Iditarod commemorates a run by sled dogs in 1925 to deliver lifesaving diphtheria serum to Nome.

The modern-day Iditarod trail crosses frozen rivers, dense woods and two mountain ranges, then goes along the dangerous sea ice up the Bering Sea shore.

Mushers compete for a piece of an $875,000 purse, to be paid out among the top 30 finishers to reach Nome. Mackey gets $69,000 and a new truck worth $45,000 for winning.

Mackey said before the race started that the prize money is important so he doesn't have "to get a real job."