Mackey wins 3rd consecutive Iditarod

NOME, Alaska – When Lance Mackey's father won the 1978 Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, he did it with one second to spare.

That isn't a scenario Lance Mackey ever wants to experience.

"I don't want to do that. I'd have a damn heart attack," Mackey said.

Mackey didn't have to worry. The 38-year-old son of Iditarod champion Dick Mackey crossed the finish line Wednesday in the 1,100-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race hours in front of the competition, joining an elite group of only two other mushers to put together three consecutive wins.

He even had time to stop his team about a half mile outside Nome, where he went down the line, primping and thanking each of his 15 dogs before resuming the final stretch.

The crowd roared as Mackey came into view down Front Street.

About a block from the finish line, Mackey raised both arms in victory and rode that way into the chute at 11:38 a.m., hours ahead of his nearest competitors in the race.

Immediately after winning, he gave treats to his dogs, calling them the "real heroes."

"This never gets old," he said at the finish line as he hugged two of them.

Then it was time to take a phone call from Dick Mackey, who barely edged the Iditarod's only five-time champion, Rick Swenson, in a mad dash down Front Street 31 years ago.

"Pretty cool, huh," Lance Mackey told his dad.

"I did it, yeah. Did you have doubts?"

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was the next one to congratulate Mackey by phone.

"We are so proud of you, Lance, and we're considering this the greatest team in Iditarod history," Palin said.

She also told Mackey, a throat cancer survivor, "You continue to give all of us hope, the adversity that you have overcome, the challenges you've met, believe me, it resonates across our nation and across our world."

Mackey — a popular figure in Alaska now being called "the people's musher" — then thanked fans despite having slept little in the past 10 days. He accepted their congratulations and signed autographs with people lined up three-deep along the finish chute.

Mackey commended his "little superstar Maple," a 3-year-old female who was in the lead for much of the last part of the race. He hauled her and 9-year-old Larry, one of his traditional lead dogs, onto the stage with him.







Norton Bay, March 16, in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. AP/Al Grillo