The 2012 Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race is through a few days of action already, but the standings still aren't all that important considering the eight and 24-hour layovers still need to take place. As of now, however, Crosby, Minn., native Dan Seavey is sitting in the back of the pack.
Seavey, the 74-year-old Iditarod veteran and father and grandfather of the other Seavey's in the race, took a rather unfortunate detour early in the race. Iditarod.com's Joe Runyan has the details:
I happened to be in the Finger checkpoint when Dan arrived last night. Unfortunately , he went 16 miles off trail after following lathe to a lodge out of Skwetna. In hindsight, he realized the lathe were not consistent with the orange top Iditarod lathe with reflectors and blue ribbon. In fact, Dan criticized himself, recalling that he had asked for the blue ribbon marking as an aid for color blind mushers years ago in his capacity as boardmember.
Nevertheless, he was in good spirits, and left this am about 6;47. He will have to hustle to stay in contact with the race.
As of Tuesday evening, the elder Seavey is in 66th place out of 66 mushers and about two hours behind the next closest team of dogs. As far as the rest of the Minnesota natives are concerned, Mitch Seavey is in fifth place, Paul Gebhardt is in seventh place, Dallas Seavey is in 10th place, Rick Swenson is in 11th place and Ken Anderson is in 30th place.
Stay tuned to our Iditarod 2012 StoryStream for more coverage of the dog sled racing taking place in Alaska this month.