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Yukon Quest: Race for Third Place is Hot!

February 20, 2008
Editor and/or Contributors

The race is on again as Dave Dalton and Michelle Phillips head out of the last checkpoint and towards the Finish Line. It will be a race for third place. But if is anything like the race for first, there won’t be any jockeying along this leg of trail; First Place winner Lance Mackey and Second Place winner Ken Anderson never saw eachother between Braeburn and Whitehorse—they raced hard the entire way. Dalton and Phillips have been running a close race since the beginning, even arriving at checkpoints at the same time. Now Dalton has a half-hour lead on Phillips. She will have to pass him on the trail to steal third place away from him. Following a mandatory eight-hour layover, Dalton left Braeburn about five minutes after his scheduled departure time of 9:15 a.m. Dalton’s dogs wouldn’t cooperate, but after switching around the order, his team headed down the trail. Phillips left on time at 9:42. The 100-mile (160 kilometre) trek to Whitehorse can take anywhere from 11 to 13 hours. The record, held by Zack Steer in 2004, is 10 hours and 52 minutes. In this race, Anderson and Mackey made covered it in 11 hours, 26 minutes and 11 hours, 30 minutes, repectively. For an excellent account of the race from the ground and air, check out Ken Anderson and Gwenn Holdmann’s website at: www.windycreekkennel.comMore news, photos and audio reports: http://www.kuac.org/08yukon.html www.newsminer.comwww.northernlightmedia.com