Yukon Quest Leaders Reset at Dawson

Hans Gatt and his team of 13 dogs was the first musher to arrive into the Dawson City checkpoint at 6:02 Wednesday evening in his quest to win his 4th Yukon Quest dog sled race. Lance Mackey who has already won 4 Yukon Quest races arrived more then 2 and a half hours later. Hugh Neff, Zack Steer, and Ken Anderson round out the top 5.

Dawson City is considered the halfway point in this race. All teams are required to take a 36 hour layover, and it is the one checkpoint where the mushers can recieve help managing their teams. The first Musher to arrive at this outpost is elgible to take home 4 ounces of Klondike placer gold which is worth $4070 canadian at todays rates, however to take that award home, the musher needs to finish the race. Hans Gatt scratched in last year's quest to better prepare for the Iditarod, so the luster of that placer gold provides him incentive to finish the roughly 500 miles left in this year's event.

For the majority of the race to this point, 4 teams have been jockeying for the lead maintaining close proximity to each other. Those 4 are still the top 4 in the standings - Gatt, Mackey, Neff, and Steer. Between Circle and Dawson that pack began to spread out as Gatt and Mackey started taking longer runs between rests, and Neff and Steer maintained schedules similar to what they had been using from the beginning. Using longer runs tends to decrease the team speed, and the GPS tracking data seems to confirm that has happened with Gatt and Mackey. Teams will be finishing their layovers Friday morning, and it will be interesting to see if what affect the rest will have on the speed teamss are able to maintain into the finish.

Ken Anderson who has 2 teams in this year's Quest, has been steady closing the gap on the leaders. Since the start time differential is made up at the Dawson layover, he will be coming off his layover only 2 minutes after Zack Steer, so he certainly be looking to advance his position. Anderson adjusted his feeding program this year by removing meat and providing 100% dry Redpaw to his team. So far they have had great appetites, so he will look to aggressively feed them during the layover so he can make a strong push to the finish. This will be one team to keep an eye on especially if he gets within range of his neighbor Lance Mackey who will leave Dawson in 3rd place due to his early (11) start position.