Mackey, Kleedehn steam into Dawson
DAWSON CITY, Yukon—Weather has been tearing up the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race trail this year.
Lance Mackey took his turn Thursday. The defending champion absolutely scorched the trail on the 150-mile run from Eagle, obliterating the previous record for the run by about five hours before bedding down in this historic gold rush town for his 36-hour mandatory layover.
Mackey, who won last year’s race as a rookie, used an unconventional—and possibly untried—strategy to overcome a two-hour deficit to Hans Gatt out of Eagle. He sizzled into Dawson at 1:47 p.m. AST, earning four ounces of gold and placing a 11⁄2-hour buffer between his team and his closest competitor, William Kleedehn.
“I made two long runs,” Mackey said as he heated his tent at the Yukon River campgrounds and hung his clothes on lines to dry out.
“That was my plan from the get-go. I did exactly what I set out to do. It didn’t matter to me too much what Hans was doing. I was wasting no time and there was no extra messing around. And we had a good run.”
Mackey was full of praise for his dog team for chewing up trail on the two runs. Mushers usually break the trail from Eagle into three runs, with two rests. His dogs had just one long rest on the trail from Eagle. That allowed him to complete the run in 23 hours, 12 minutes, about five hours faster than previous record runs.
Kleedehn, who finished eight minutes behind Mackey last year, was second into Dawson. He arrived at 3:16 p.m. and also easily surpassed the previous record run from Eagle with a time of 24:11. Gatt, who left Eagle first, probably employed the more conventional rest-run strategy, covering the trail from Eagle in 28:10.
Mackey will be allowed to leave Dawson at 3:19 a.m. Saturday morning. Kleedehn can leave at 4:30 and Gatt will be released at 6:03. The rest of the 13-team field was still on the way to Dawson late Thursday.
“I think they just love to please me, and I do everything in my power to make them happy,” Mackey said of his dogs. “They’re flawless. It’s an honor to drive them. This whole team as a whole is something to be reckoned with.
“I’m not one to brag about them, but damn they look good.”
Mackey’s sled was damaged in a slow run through sugary snow on the Yukon River from Circle to Eagle, and it continued to give Mackey problems Thursday.
“It’s a workout,” he said. “That sled is not working right. It pulls hard to the left, real hard. It’s real extreme.”
Mackey will get his gold poke if he finishes the race. He also picked up the gold in Dawson last year before taking the $30,000 winner’s share of the $125,000 purse.
“Those little added bonuses are kind of sentimental to me,” said Mackey. “I think I’ll just put it on a shelf in my trophy case along with the rest of them.”
He said if he did end up cashing in some of the gold, he would use it for dog food.
“The dogs are the ones who earned it,” Mackey said.
Mackey said he fell asleep on the sled at least twice during the run to Dawson. He was woken from those moments when he fell off his sled.
During his one camp to rest the dogs, he was awakened by a camera crew on snowmachines.
“I woke up and there was a camera in my face,” he said. “It was weird.”
Last year at this same campsite in Dawson, Mackey posted a sign on a tree leading to his camp that said, “MACKEY … Lance Mackey, that is.”
The sign was a nod to the fact that older brother Rick, the race’s 1997 champion, was a little better-known along the trail. Mackey was often referred to as Rick by race fans and volunteers last year. This year, he’s heard his own name used more frequently.
“They’re starting to remember it now,” he said. “My family name is well established in this sport, by my family didn’t hand me a perfect dog team. I’m trying to make my own name.”