Nikolai
by Tyrell Seavey
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Ultimate Iditarod's coverage of the 2006 Iditarod sponsored by:
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Not surprisingly Doug Swingley maintained his lead going to Nikolai and he will probably leave in first as well. Nikolai is a great place because it is the first checkpoint (and the last until Cripple) that almost all of the competitive mushers choose to rest at. This means that when they leave we will know how they stack up against each other. I would anticipate a big rush of inbound teams over the next few hours and a real pile-up in Nikolai.
Further
back in the pack the race seems to be progressing well. Dan left Rainy Pass at 12:02 p.m. and seems
to be making his way along at a steady clip.
He is running the Seavey puppy team so don’t
expect to see him trying to move too far up into the pack. Tim Osmar and Rachael Scdoris, both running
16 dogs, just went through Rohn which means that outside of a few minor hassles
(Rachael’s towline breaking being the worst I have heard about) things are
going good for them and Rachael has successfully made it through the Gorge a
second time. She is now heading into the Buffalo Tunnels which are arguably more
of a technical challenge but by not resting in Rohn she will have the advantage
of approaching these difficult sections with a calm team rather than a fresh excitable
one. By all indications Rick Casillo is
on his schedule and his team is holding up.
He dropped his first dog in Rohn.
Cindy Gallea is out of Rohn at
I will know a lot more about Mitch’s condition when he reaches Nikolai, but so far so good. He has deviated a bit from his “plan A’ but he has so many contingent plans that just about no matter what he will be on one of them. Expect him to push a bit between Nikolai and his 24 hour mandatory which he will take in Cripple if things are going well. In order for him to be in position to win he would like to be within 6 hours of the leader going into Cripple +/- start differential times. (the make up for the two minute start intervals)