Contrary to popular belief, the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race does not end when the nose of the first dog crosses the finish line. There’s 35 other teams out there still “racing” at that point.

Now that the top 20 is being fleshed out, there’s still some stories down the trail; some good, some bad. I can’t believe Ed Iten and Melissa Owens scratched at Elim — so close to the finish line. I don’t know any details, but could guess that the wind took its toll on the attitude of their dogs. That has to be a heart-wrenching decision.

Royer has another strong run

Quick note on Jessie Royer: Before the race she told me she had the usual team, which is one with some question marks that would require some TLC up the trail. Royer is famous for spending precious extra minutes massaging her dogs. She’s old school in that she generally has 1,800 training miles on her dogs before the race start. That’s the goal most mushers would aspire to as recently as the early part of this decade. Many teams now have 3,000 or more these days. If she didn’t have to drop too many dogs by the Yukon River, Royer figured she’d be competitive. Actually, she said she’d probably be competitive even if she did have a small team. She typically gets down to a core 10 dogs and promptly starts passing people up the coast. So when I saw she had 14 dogs at Unalakleet, I figured she’d be a strong finisher. The weather cards fell in her favor, and Royer was able to pass the front runners during the logjam at Shaktoolik.

Battle for 20th and 30th

Look at the battle between Ray Redington Jr. and Matt Hayashida for 20th. They got to Safety in six hours or less — that’s flying by Iditarod standards. Redington, ahead by 17 minutes, dropped two dogs at Safety. He was plainly doing everything he could to maintain his team’s speed to  slip into the top 20. That battle would be decided sometime after midnight Alaska time.

Right now, as I write, there’s a fun contest heating up for the last money position — 30th. Chad Lindner is the odds-on favorite, and a lock for rookie of the year. His run times are very fast for this stage of the race. He’s battling with Ed Stielstra from Michigan, and Jake Berkowitz, running a team of yearlings for Zack Steer. Berkowitz has patiently maintained a full string of 16 dogs, which is quite a feat considering the young age of most of them. I’m sure he’s got some older leaders up front.

Those three never expected to be in the hunt for top 30, but the scratches at Elim made room. There is plainly a race between them. Stielstra had been posting slower run times, then bolted out of Elim after three and a half hours. Berkowitz and Lindner got rolling about a half hour later. Lindner had caught and passed Stielstra before White Mountain.

The weather still looks cool and breezy, but not as bad as it was. It’s in the fiv15 below range with 12 mph winds out of the north. Still enough to sting and make mushers bundle up a little. That also could be a factor in those scratches. Dogs may have had enough already of the headwinds, but that is pure speculation.