Sometimes your stars are aligned; sometimes your dogs just pull faster. ANDREW TOLVE speaks with the Iditarod leader who's got both going for him right now.
What can he say? Lance Mackey loves to mush. (AP Photo/Al Grillo)
Lance Mackey has never won the Iditarod. He has never come in second or even held the lead more than briefly. Five times Mackey has entered the Iditarod field, and five times he has failed.
Which is why this year he is destined to prevail.
You see, Mackey hails from an oddly fortunate family of dog mushers. His father, Dick Mackey, won the Iditarod in 1978 -- on his sixth try, wearing bib number 13. Then came Lance's brother, Rick Mackey, who won the Iditarod in 1983 -- on his sixth try, and wearing bib number 13.
With five failed attempts behind him, Lance Mackey is well on his way to mushing immortality in the 2007 Iditarod -- and he drew bib number 13 to help him get there.
"I'm pretty confident I know what I'm doing," said Mackey, who stands just shy of 6 feet tall with shaggy brown hair and a bedraggled mustache and goatee. "I just have to get everything dialed in, and the stars need to align. I have a whole pot of luck on my side."
So far, so good.
As of Wednesday morning, the fourth day of the world's most famous dogsled race, the 36-year-old Mackey was squarely in the lead.
Four-time champions Jeff King and Martin Buser were trailing close behind in third and fourth place, respectively. If things proceed as scripted, the two titans of the sport will continue to lose ground, as Mackey blazes toward Nome and a date with destiny.
Mackey has the experience to keep his current lead safe.
For the past three years running he has won the Yukon Quest, widely considered the most grueling dogsled race in the world. This year he cut himself off from running water and electricity in Fairbanks just to concentrate on the Iditarod.
He logged more miles in preparation than ever before, often riding trails in the nearby White Mountains well into the night. His team of huskies finally matured as a result. And he says his mental focus, perhaps the most valuable of assets for a dog musher, is where it needs to be for destiny to manifest.
"I know the spotlight is going to be on me," Mackey said in a telephone interview in the weeks before the race. "People are making a big hurrah about this being my sixth attempt. But can you imagine if it really comes true? You gotta have as much luck as you have skill and determination."
Indeed, fortune has a way of wreaking havoc on every Iditarod. For each contender who races the 1,200 miles from Anchorage to Nome peril-free, there are ten more who get waylaid by blizzards, tangled in creek beds, or thrown off course by wild animals.
In 1985, Susan Butcher was leading the race when she ran into a crazed moose that trampled her team. Six years later, a tempest with a chill factor of negative 100 degrees left several leaders near-blind, while the eventual champion, Rick Swenson, emerged unscathed on a pair of snowshoes.
Last year, King's team hit a snow drift, sending him tumbling and unhooking some of his dogs, who disappeared down the trail. But his lead dog stopped the runaway team, and King caught up and went on to win.
"All the past champions will be the first to tell you, they had to have some luck to win," said Mackey. "I'm just hoping for the best. If everything comes together, what a story."
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Andrew Tolve is a freelancer based in San Francisco.
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