The 2012 Iditarod is still happening and, as of Wednesday night, there was a bit of a lull in the race. Not because the conditions were too poor to continue or anything like that, but because the majority of the mushers decided to partake in their mandatory 24-hour rest stop.
Quite a few members of the pack decided to stop and stay at the Takotna checkpoint and, according the Iditarod.com blog, a few of the teams resting looked raring to run -- including a few Minnesota natives in Dallas and Mitch Seavey:
I will say that there were an amazing amount of perky fresh looking teams pulling in here last night. With that said, of notice were Aliy Zirkle's, Mitch Seavey's, Jeff King's, Aaron Burmeister's and Dallas Seavey's teams. It's way too early to know who really is driving the best teams yet but these teams looked the freshest at this point in the race. Every team will have ups and downs due to a race of this length but these little details often reveal which teams are getting stronger as they move down the trail.
Mitch is currently leading all Minnesotans as he currently has a foothold on seventh place, though son Dallas isn't far behind in ninth. Other Minnesota natives include Paul Gebhardt in 11th place, Rick Swenson in 20th, Ken Anderson in 27th and 74-year-old Dan Seavey bringing up the rear in 66th place. Everyone but Dan Seavey took a rest stop at Takotna, and Dan likely will once he gets there, too.
Stay tuned to our Iditarod 2012 StoryStream for more coverage of the dog sled racing taking place in Alaska this month.