Eagle Island on a Sunny Winter Day. Low hills and a small cabin. Remote but beautiful.
Good Morning Race Fans! If you are like me and saw Pete and the Team literally burning up the trail last night, it was like Christmas morning getting up this morning to come running out and see if Santa had come!
Pete and the Team were on fire last night on the trail!
After sneaking out of Grayling instead of taking his 8 hour layover, Team Kaiser blew the doors off all of the Teams running up to Eagle Island.
Get this! He was 52 minutes faster that Joar and 31 minutes faster than Nic Petit! That’s an EPIC run by any stretch of the imagination! All I could do was just say… WOW!! That’s the fastest time on that trail since 2007 when Bruce Linton did it in 6 hours 5 minutes.
So what does this do for Pete when he still has to do his 8 hours?
Taking a look at the tracker, it shows Jessie Royer camped before Eagle Island. She stopped her Team at 4:05 this morning. Pete passed that spot at 1:40, giving him a 20 minute speed advantage over her Team. So Pete is faster, but Teams that have already done their 8 hour break have the advantage of being able to leave a little earlier, rest just a little less to catch the leaders and put themselves on their interval. This is a chancy stake, but 30 minutes here and there may help a Team. Mitch Seavey, for example, did this in Iditarod to put himself in Pete’s interval.
All of the Teams are going to do what their Teams require. Jessie stopped before Eagle Island. Was it so she could sneak by or was it because it was almost exactly 6 hours since she began the run? I’d venture to guess it was a little of both.
If Pete decides Eagle Island is the place for his 8 hour, he can leave at 10:28. Nic Petit did not stop at Eagle Island and is pushing North to Kaltag. His speeds show problems though. Tough trail? It shouldn’t be a bad trail with the snowmachine crew bringing all of the supplies down from Kaltag, but on the other hand it could be a nasty soft mess with the warm temperatures. Either way, Nic’s progress isn’t as speedy as it was before Eagle Island. He is camped 18 miles upriver from Eagle Island and it took him 3 1/2 hours to make it to that point. It is definitely slow going after Eagle Island.
Richie just made it into Eagle Island just after Mitch Seavey. It looks like what is going to happen is that right around the time Pete finishes his 8 hour layover, a slew of Teams will have rested and will be ready to push ahead. I would imagine Joar leaving around 7-8 which would put him about 2-3 hours in front of Pete where he has been consistently running.
It is going to be an exciting day of racing. Weather is going to a little warm, but a cooling trend for this evening will be a welcome respite for the Teams.
Kaltag, Alaska
What a great race we are watching! Go Team Kaiser!
