Day 10: Mackey on final leg toward coronation

March 17, 2009

Lance Mackey arrived in White Mountain just after 6 p.m. Tuesday. (Scott Jensen/KTUU-TV)

by Kevin Wells
Tuesday, March 17, 2009

NOME, Alaska -- Lance Mackey can sense the finish line of Iditarod 37: the two-time defending champion has left White Mountain and is less than 77 miles from victory.

He left White Mountain at 2:11 a.m. bound for Safety, then Nome. His estimated time of arrival at the finish line is roughly noon. KTUU.com will send out e-mail and text message alerts with the approximate on-air time for the live finish from Nome when Mackey reaches Safety. You can sign up on the front page.

It sounds like a broken record but it's a tune Mackey doesn't mind hearing. Sometime Wednesday he will become only the third musher in Iditarod history to three-peat, joining Susan Butcher and Doug Swingley.

Mackey arrived in White Mountain at 6:05 p.m. Tuesday following a 7-hour run from Elim through Golovin -- his old hometown where his father, Dick Mackey, winner of the 1978 Iditarod, once managed the village fish cooperative.

He settled in for a mandatory 8-hour layover with the competition far behind -- Mackey is departing checkpoints by the time others get there.

If he served notice by going back-to-back last year, this year's Iditarod is a statement for all time.

"This has been kind of a hang on, enjoy the ride' kind of a ride," Mackey said as he tended to his team in White Mountain. "Last year I worked my tail off to get what I received -- not that I haven't worked this year, but these guys have been almost flawless."

He won't mind it, but this could be the slowest Iditarod since the last 10-day race won by Martin Buser in 1994. Poor weather along the Bering Sea coast has caused all kinds of problems for mushers the last day or so.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. Contact Kevin Wells at kwells@ktuu.com

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