NOME — The incredible Lance Mackey has done it again.
“I feel like I earned this one a little more,” he said at the finish line of Iditarod 36 as thousands of fans flocked the burled arch on Front Street, cheering and chanting “Mackey! Mackey! Mackey!”
He crossed the finish line with a strong string of 11 dogs at 2:46 a.m. March 12, winning the Iditarod in 9 days, 11 hours, 46 minutes and 48 seconds.
Following up on a storybook year in 2007 of unmatched greatness against unbelievable odds — winning the Yukon Quest and Iditarod back to back on a shoe-string budget wearing the same bib number of his father and brother when they won the race — Mackey has again claimed victory in both the Quest and Iditarod. Back-to-back double doubles.
But, oh, how he did earn it this year. If 2007 was a cakewalk, a year when everything fell his way, where the tasks seemed effortless, the dogs tireless and fast, then 2008 was an exercise in frustration. He struggled. He ached. His hands and feet hurt tremendously. His trusted leader Hobo was dropped early; the team was flat and listless, some were sick. At one point, he considered scratching. It’s been a year where Mackey has honed more skills as a motivator and physical therapist than he ever thought he’d need. But through all his trouble and trevails, Mackey’s team still consistently set the pace on a trail that was mercilessly soft and punchy and hot.
“My performance with the team has been the best its ever been,” a smiling Mackey said today at White Mountain while he waited out his mandatory eight-hour rest.
Back home in Phoenix, Arizona, Mackey’s father, the 1978 Iditarod champion Dick Mackey was anxiously following his son’s progress using the Iditarod’s satellite tracker. He wasn’t able to make the trip north this year to witness Mackey’s victory. “I’m drinking milk to settle my stomach. It’s pretty nerve-wracking watching this thing by computer,” the senior Mackey said.
The facts of Lance Mackey’s growing list of achievements start humbly. Mackey spent six years building a racing kennel on a shoestring, and has ridden a winning streak that few will ever match. It’s almost hard to believe that only six years ago, Mackey was fighting for his life against cancer in his neck. He has lingering physical pain and weakness from that battle, constant reminders of his mortality.
This year’s Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race started off on a warm note and only got hotter, softer and slower. At times, some teams felt the patter of raindrops, but mostly the moisture fell as thick wet flakes of snow in temperatures that rose into the mid-30s. Almost to a person, mushers complained of slow run times, and Mackey was among them.
Mackey launched into the Iditarod just like he’d finished the Yukon Quest, with long runs. He went six hours to Skwentna, rested about as long as he ran, then began a series of long camping runs. He blew through Finger Lake and pulled over at Finbear Lake, about halfway to Rainy Pass checkpoint. After a lengthy camp there, maybe six hours, he roared through Rainy Pass, descended the Dalzel Gorge and then made a neat move: Because it had taken him less than six hours to reach Rohn, he pressed forward part way to Nikolai.
After blowing through every checkpoint except for Skwentna in the early part of the race, Mackey reached Nikolai first, 10 minutes ahead of, who else, Jeff King. But Mackey’s team was “flat.” It lacked spirit and energy, and his beloved leader Larry had a bit of a limp. To make matters worse, he’d dropped Hobo, his go-to speed dog back at Rohn after he hadn’t healed from a dog fight with 2007 Golden Harness winner Larry. Mackey was discouraged.
What happened next is where his race was won (more than the cheeky fake-out at Elim, where he snuck out on a sleeping Jeff King). At Nikolai, Mackey bucked traditional logic. Even though his team was down, sore and some were sick, Mackey picked up and left the straw after just four and a half hours rest. His logic was counterintuitive, but brilliant. No amount of rest at Nikolai was going to do his dogs any good; no, Mackey decided that they needed a nice long 24-hour rest where he had sent lots of drop bags, at Takotna.
He nursed, nudged, praised, petted and snacked his way up the Kuskokwim River, through McGrath, where he won the PenAir Spirit of Alaska award for being first there. His team did not look dominant there; Kjetil Backen’s and King’s teams were sharper. But by the time Mackey reached Takotna, his team was getting its spunk back. By the time he came off his 24, the team wasn’t clear of its unwillingness to run fast, but at least it was healthy and happy.
Next came the beginning of a long duel with King that culminated in Elim, where Mackey finally shook King loose and gained an hour advantage.
The cat-and-mouse battle, with King taking the role of cat, started up the Yukon River, where King consistenlty posted faster run times. And Mackey grew more and more upset. He was frustrated with his dogs, annoyed how half of them weren’t pulling.
King briefly pulled ahead at Unalakleet, but Mackey’s on-the-fly reaction to his own mistake back on the Yukon allowed him to cut rest at Unalakleet and jump back into the lead. Mackey had camped out on the Yukon on the way to Nulato for three hours; he got the team back on the trail only to discover he was just about at Nulato. He pulled in there anyway, and took an additional five hour rest.
To make up for that error, Mackey blew through Kaltag and went 26 more miles to camp at Tripop Flats cabin. From there, it was about seven hours down to Unalakleet. That’s not a long run for Mackey’s dogs. He rested only 2 hours and 45 minutes, and was off again to Shaktoolik.
King consistently gained on Mackey up the coast, but would not or could not pass him. Mackey ranted at checkpoints about how lethargic his dogs were. Yet he kept showing up first. King cooly praised his team for its power and speed. Yet he kept showing up second.
Was King toying with Mackey? Yes, somewhat. Was Mackey toying with King, and simply psyching King into believing he was vulnerable? Not entirely. Mackey was genuinely angry, or else an excellent actor. He was beside himself at Koyuk. But no doubt he used that situation to his advantage for what came later.
Then, all of a sudden, his team came together. The old Mackey magic was back. They trotted smoothly up to Elim. There, he set a trap for King. Mackey had his cooker going and was feeding his dogs when King pulled in, just three minutes behind him. King, who’d been exhausted since Kaltag, fed his team and lay down for a quick nap. Mackey sprung up when he heard the first snore and snuck out. King jolted awake 30 minutes later, figured out Mackey was gone, and got his own team up and out of the checkpoint. But he’d lost an hour on his rival by then.
On the ice out of Elim, hoping his ruse worked, Mackey wondered. “If this actually works, it would be one of the coolest things I’ve done in the race,” he said. “I don’t know how else to out-run him.”
It worked, changing the momentum for good. (By the way, the word “ruse” is based on an old French word that means “the dodging movements of a hunted animal.” That perfectly describes Mackey at that point in the race.)
Mackey was able to turn on the burners from that point out, keeping King at bay for the rest of the trail into Nome.
Two races down. So what’s up next? Oh not much, just the All Alaska Sweepstakes in a week and a half, which starts and ends in Nome. Before the Iditarod kicked off this year, Mackey said that his real focus was the 400-mile Sweepstakes and its winner-take-all $100,000 purse. His beloved leader Hobo should be healed by then. If anyone has a shot at winning all three large-purse distance races in a year, it is Lance Mackey.