McGRATH — Lance Mackey maintained his lead, checking in here at 10:46 p.m., rifling through his drop bags and hitting the trail again 15 minutes later, mentioning to checkers that he planned on a nice rest for his dogs in Takotna, a short 18 miles away.

Jeff King’s dogs trotted up 23 minutes later, took 17 minutes to cut off his sled’s caboose, peel all his dogs’ booties off, and continue on after Mackey. Then Kjetil Backen’s team screamed in 15 minutes behind King; Backen didn’t take any time, just checking in and out.

Both Backen and King’s dogs pulled the snowhook at least once, indicating they had plenty of gas in the tank.

A gap of 15 minutes, let alone an hour, at this point of the Iditarod is meaningless. It’s a virtual dead heat. Keep in mind also that King has bib number 11, Mackey is bib 6 and Backen is bib 42. Backen actually has an hour less for his 24-hour layover than the first two teams ahead of him, making him the essential race leader at McGrath.

Just looking at Backen’s team, it reminded me of Robert Sorlie’s dog team in 2005, which went on to win. It is very powerful, with large dogs; they stood alert, bright-eyed and eager to consume trail. Backen, too, seemed relaxed. Since he said before the race that he’d know by Nikolai if his team was fit to race for first, I asked him as he checked in at McGrath. He said, “It’s too early to tell.”

King took the most time at McGrath, systematically moving from his leaders to wheel dogs, removing every bootie, then using a knife to cut away plastic rails holding the tail toboggan portion of his sled — all the time fielding questions from media, fans and children. He left that caboose to be mailed home, saying he didn’t need it anymore. His team also took off briefly before bystanders grabbed the sled.

For being first to McGrath, Mackey won the PenAir Spirit of Alaska award. “We’ve got a few more miles to go,” he said. Then he said he was running “without a steering wheel right now. I stopped many times to switch out leaders, but we’re making good time.” A fast time to McGrath is generally in the five and a half hour range, although the trail can change year to year. The front three did it in six and a half hours, part of which could be attributed to warm weather and a little fresh, sticky snow.

King has said in the past that he likes to remove his dogs’ booties an hour or two before bedding them down so that they can get right on their straw to rest. Running a couple of hours without booties isn’t a bad thing when the trail is as gentle and generally firm as it is between McGrath and Takotna. The move by King signaled a likely pit stop at Takotna, whether it would be six hours or 24 he did not say. But it would seem to me that he figured on a shorter rest. He can leave the dogs alone more quickly so they squeeze a longer nap into a shorter pit stop.

Those front three were followed by a sizable pack of strong dog teams, any one of which could easily still win this race. Paul Gebhardt was next in, very close to the front three, followed by a string of other contenders including Hans Gatt, Mitch Seavey, Aaron Burmeister, the Busers (Martin and son, Rohn), Aliy Zirkle, Hugh Neff and quite a few others.

The fact that the Busers are running together and still very competitive is a fascinating development.