2007 champ meets with his father, talks about dogs
NOME, Alaska, 9:00 p.m., March 15, 2007 — The Iditarod always ushers its winner into Nome’s mini convention center for a Q&A with the public right when he steps off the sled, and the first words out of Lance Mackey that evening were, “I am buying a sit-down sled, no doubt about it. No doubt about it.”
He was wiped out physically but not mentally. He was his usual talkative self and spent the next hour fielding questions, seated and eating at a table where someone delivered a steak dinner.
But before he’d talked more than a minute or two, a familiar white-haired man strode up to the stage - Dick Mackey, Lance’s father and his inspiration not just to race but also to have the will to win. The two met in a wordless hug.
“Do you realize what you’ve done?” the elder Mackey asked.
“Yeah, I’ve won a new truck,” his son said, wiping back some tears, and sending laughter rippling through the packed room.
It turned out that Dick Mackey had been on a flight to Nome that was delayed; he called Iditarod Race Director Joanne Potts to let her know he wouldn’t be there to see his son. Potts knew that wouldn’t do. She told him to wait five minutes and call her back. When he did, she’d somehow arranged for him to jump on another flight, and the airline had agreed to pull his bags out of the other plane. Dick Mackey and his luggage showed up a few minutes too late to see his son’s team finish, but not too late for the celebration.
Lance Mackey revealed that the old, loose-fitting wool sweater he wears whenever he races is one his father wore when he raced. It’s his lucky sweater, he said, but the tattered garment probably now will become mantelpiece material, like his lucky bib 13.
Seconds later, Mackey brought up something that obviously was on his mind. He’d dropped one of his main dogs, Zorro, at White Mountain with canine pneumonia. When race veterinarians noticed the dog’s temperature was a little high and he had a slight cough, they brought him indoors, into the community building that serves as the checkpoint. Mackey had arrived in the wee hours of the night, 1:38 a.m., and the chief veterinarian there spent the rest of the night seated on a small wooden chair keeping an eye on Zorro to monitor his condition.
Zorro is more than just a dog to Mackey. The dark, shaggy 8-year-old is the heart of Mackey’s program. He is the father, uncle or cousin of every dog on his team. More than that, he’s a buddy of Mackey’s, which was obvious to anyone who saw the 2007 Iditarod leader sweet-talk the dog.
“I want to thank the veterinarians for having Zorro cared for,” he said. “I worried the whole run here.”
Zorro just needed to end his race at White Mountain and is doing fine, Mackey said a day later.
Regarding his dogs in general, Mackey said they all fit his two requirements: happy attitude and hearty appetite. “I’m already looking forward to next year,” he said. “I feel it is one of the steadiest, most willing-to-please teams. They’ll do anything for me. That’s exactly the reason why I’m here in the position I am. It took a little something extra to beat the people I did.”
Asked what his race plan has been, Mackey said he had one, but it had been pretty vague, which fits with what he told me during the race and with what I’ve seen of him over the years. He excels at taking what he has been given, and either overcoming adversity or turning events to his advantage.
“I’m a kind of person who just goes with the flow,” he said. “My motto is do whatever it takes to get the job done. If I set a schedule, then something will go wrong. You gotta just go with the flow and wing it.”
Ken Anderson had a good race
Ken Anderson of Fox, Alaska, slipped beneath the burled arch pretty much the way he ran the race, quietly, but in seventh place. It was his first time back
to the top 10 since a fifth-place run in 2003, and he said the team wound up in just about its best possible position, given the way he ran them. Like many others, Anderson had to weather a few bad bounces. He lost a lot of time getting down to Rohn, missing the trail and doubling back to Rainy Pass to drop a dog.
He made up ground a little at a time. He broke the run to Takotna into two long runs, took his 24-hour layover and began nibbling away at the leads of other teams. By the time he reached Eagle Island, Anderson was hanging around the top 10.
Anderson has become “famous” in recent weeks because of his new neighbor in the Murphy Dome neighborhood, one Lance Mackey. Mackey moved there last summer, and the two quickly developed a working relationship. Did it help his team this year to have Mackey as a neighbor? Anderson smiled and said it sure didn’t hurt.
Sebastian Schnuelle’s $10,000 nap
Sebastian Schnuelle’s dog team roared in the final stages of the 2007 Iditarod, eating up the icy tundra much faster than the competition as he passed a few teams in the last 150 miles of racing.
He rolled to a stop in 23rd place, a big bump up from 38th and 35th in his previous two attempts. That part of the race was fun, he said.
Schnuelle’s team came down with a stomach bug that affected several teams midway through the race. So he spent long hours making sure they ate and resting them as much as he could. Once they emerged from the sickness, they perked right up, and he said he was feeling good about the race again by Kaltag. Then one of the nightmares of all mushers happened to him, in real life.
He awoke from what was supposed to be a short nap alongside a few other mushers, only to find the checkpoint completely empty. He staggered outside to find the parking area was empty, too, except for his team. He’d overslept by five hours.
That was one expensive nap, he noted. It probably cost him a position within the top 20, which could mean a difference of up to $10,000.