Racers ponder their moves to Cripple and Ruby

TAKOTNA — Lance Mackey’s bleary eyes took a while to adjust to the bright daylight as he shuffled out of the log cabin church that serves as a dormitory for sleeping Iditarod dog mushers serving their 24 hour layovers. “Better go feed ‘em,” he said to nobody in particular.

The lanky musher quickly warmed up as he grabbed a plastic bag of thinly sliced, bright red beef patties. His dogs seemed to warm up, too. Mackey’s smile widened, and his dogs wriggled and wagged tails harder. He smiled broader. They ate like wolves.

It seems like Mackey and his team feed off each other’ energy, and it’s been a tough haul for the reigning champion since Nikolai. His dogs seemed blue, and Mackey did, too. Some of his team have battled a stomach flu from the start and they simply refused to eat at Nikolai, which would be reason for most mushers to stop longer. Not Mackey. He cut loose early from there, hoping to get the team to Takotna, where he had supplies for a 24-hour layover. That move may have helped bring his team back into shape.

But his departure from Nikolai wasn’t just a simple case of hopping on the runners and watching the dogs run. He played nurse maid the entire way. He stopped to change booties, he stopped to snack, he stopped to switch out leaders — he stopped dozens of times — “even just to walk up and say hi,” he said. They slowly began getting back to their normal selves, and, by Takotna, they were lively again.

So why shut them down when they’re finally doing OK? He felt it was important to rest the dogs at Takotna instead of making a couple of long runs on soft trail to Cripple and risk tiring them too much. “This is a good place to stop and get them 100 percent rather than Cripple, where 24 hours there might not be enough,” he said.

As I watched him snack his dogs about 5:30 p.m. Wednesday — about 12 hours before he’d depart — I thought this team might just be ready for some serious racing. It’s hard to predict performance, but, not to get too graphic, at least their digestive systems were working perfectly.

Was it a very good team or one that is excellent enough to win the Iditarod? As Mackey observed, “They need to be tip top to win.” Whatever the outcome, this Iditarod has been one of his toughest when it comes to motivating them and working with nagging problems. “I got a project to work with this round. It’s not always easy and smooth,” he said. “Everybody’s got issues, and I just have a few more than I’m used to, that’s all.”

The Takotna trio of Mackey, Jeff King and Kjetil Backen had been in front of the race, barely, when they pulled over. When they take off in the early morning Thursday, they will follow a trail blazed by 10 other teams that didn’t stop. If the temperatures cool a little, it could be to their advantage. One or more of the Takotna trio will likely try to run straight from Takotna to Cripple in one shot, as King did in 2006 — a move that set him up for victory. That run would have to be followed by another long run, maybe 10 hours, down to Ruby for the plan to work.

They could just as easily break the long haul from Takotna to Ruby into three smaller chunks, but it would require two camp outs instead of one. But as Backen said, three smaller runs might preserve a team’s speed, allowing it regain any lost time from the extra camp out. Backen said he was considering the more conservative move partly because just eight of his dogs have been to Nome before; he has a strong team and is not interested in having it slow down after a couple of long, hard runs with half the race yet to go. He wasn’t about to tell me what he was going to do, but only said it was one option.

My calculations are very rough, but Backen will likely be the first to come off his 24 about 4:30 a.m. Thursday. That should put him about an hour ahead of Hans Gatt, 24-ing at McGrath. I expect Gatt to roll through Takotna about 5:30 a.m., on the heels of Mackey and King, who should launch from Takotna shortly after 5 a.m.

If their run times to Cripple are significantly faster than the 10 who went on there to take their 24 hour layovers, it will be advantage Backen, King and Mackey. If the run times are a wash, then it’s still a wide open game.