Martin Buser, four-time winner and record-holder for the fastest Iditarod finish ever, has taken the lead in the 2011 Iditarod, storming through the Nikolai checkpoint Tuesday afternoon. Buser, who is still racing with all 16 of his dogs, led a group of 10 mushers within two hours of each other to Nikolai, a town with a population of about 100 people that is the checkpoint after a 75-mile run from Rohn. He rested for four-and-a-half hours before heading out for McGrath, a run that should be an uneventful 54 miles.
Iditarod 2011: Martin Buser Surges Into Lead, Lance Mackey Forced To Drop Four Dogs
But uneventful is exactly what this Iditarod has not been. Buser, aiming to join Rick Swenson as the race’s only five-time champs, lost roughly a half hour after after he got tangled with Jamaican Newton Marshall’s team.
“I pulled over just to let him pass, and I guess he had a dog in heat or something, and so they went on to my team,” Marshall said.
Buser told Swenson that the dogs tangled and he was forced to turn some of the team loose to unwrap the teams. Some male dogs in Buser’s team chased the female in heat down the trail, Marshall said.
Eventually, thanks to the help of fellow musher Ken Anderson, Buser had his full team back -- including Celine Dion, the dog in heat.
Buser is hardly the only musher who has dealt with adversity in the early going of this Iditarod race: DeeDee Jonrowe was lost for more than an hour after a wrong turn; Sebastian Schnuelle crashed on the infamous Happy River Steps, a Z-shaped series of turns; and the aforementioned four-time champion Rick Swenson crashed and broke his collarbone, another victim of the steps.
Perhaps the worst yet: Lance Mackey, winner of the past four Iditarods and the leader entering Tuesday (he came into Nikolai about 30 minutes behind Buser), has already had to drop four dogs and admits “it doesn’t look to promising at this time.” Mackey said that the dogs dropped -- Maple, his lead dog, along with Jester, Pimp and Lippy, one his veterans -- were not eating and not pulling.
Despite it all though, Buser remains optimistic, saying that this year’s trail is “probably one of the best ever.”
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