Some pre-race picks, for what it is worth
ANCHORAGE — Two mushers showed a little spark, each threatening to win the 2008 Iditarod, as they stood at the podium and drew their starting positions Thursday night at Sullivan Arena.
One was defending champion Lance Mackey, who told the audience, and especially the mushers seated there, that if anyone thinks for a moment that his dogs are tired from their recent tough win in the 1,000-mile Yukon Quest, they better think again. He’s got a surprise for them. His team is ready. Mackey will start with bib number 6.
Five spots behind him, wearing bib 11, will be one of the teams Mackey passed last year on his way to his story-book victory: Jeff King. King fired back from the podium, making sure first that Mackey was in the room to listen. He told the crowd that during the 2007 race, at the key turning point in Unalakleet, Mackey had strode past him, saying simply, “Are you scared now?”
Thursday night in the Sullivan arena, King replied, “I don’t give up that easily, Lance,” and he pulled out a small iPod with tiny speakers, leaned the stage microphone down, and filled the arena with so-familiar trumpet intro to the theme from “Rocky.” King, a four time champion, compared himself to the underdog New York Giants and said sometimes past champions come back to win.
