NOME — About the first thing Hans Gatt did when he set his hook under the burled arch was ask head checker Leo Rasmussen where Mitch Seavey was. Don’t worry, Rasmussen said, the race is over. He can’t catch you. “Don’t worry about where Mitch Seavey is.”
Gatt had perhaps the most surreal run of the top 10 overnight Wednesday. He lost at least an hour on the 50-mile leg from White Mountain to Safety by simply dallying, enjoying the view and falling asleep on the runners. He felt his team didn’t have the energy to chase Rayme Smyth, Ken Anderson and Martin Buser for third place, and he assumed he had enough padding behind him so that nobody could pass. “I was asleep so many times, I didn’t think of anyone catching up,” he said. “I was sight-seeing a lot. I just about blew it.”
Gatt was literally startled awake at the Safety checkpoint, his team at full stop, when he looked behind him and saw a headlamp bearing down. It was Seavey. Gatt switched into race mode and darted for Cape Nome, the last hill in the race. “I was on top of Cape Nome and he was at the bottom. That’s how close it was,” he said.
Mitch Seavey finishes seventh
The thing is, Seavey had no idea, either. He never saw Gatt up ahead, but if he had, the 2004 champion said he certainly would have made a bid for sixth place. Convinced Gatt was long gone, Seavey snacked his dogs and changed booties.
He praised a thee-year-old dog who finished the race in single lead, named Payton, who matured and drove his team forward this year after some key leaders were dropped during the race. Payton gets the job done and stays happy, a real special quality, Seavey said.
Gebhardt bounces back to eighth; Backen is ninth
Paul Gebhardt finished with a strong, happy dog team about 40 minutes behind Seavey, managing to pull ahead of Kjetil Backen by a few minutes. Seavey, Gebhardt and Backen traveled together all the way up the coast, taking turns breaking trail while on the move, and joking around a lot in checkpoints while parked. Seavey was working with young leader Payton and a relatively small team of nine dogs; Gebhardt was trying to claw back into the front of the pack after a disastrous run to Cripple knocked him several hours off the pace; and Backen had switched to training mode around Cripple, focusing on getting younger dogs to Nome in a happy state of mind.
For Gebhardt, the race could have ended early. “I can honestly say the first thing that crossed my mind at Cripple was call an airplane and go home,” he said.”But I slept on it, got up, got a new game plan, talked to the dogs, they ate like crazy and I took it from there.”
Backen’s successfully happy team roared into the finish chute about 10 minutes behind Gebhardt. The Team Norway musher said it was mission accomplished and the team, several of which are two years old, has a bright future with whoever races it next year.