Lance Mackey
Lucky 13 and a race for the ages
Published: March 15, 2007
Last Modified: March 15, 2007 at 03:27 AM
'Unreal" is the word Lance Mackey used on Nome's Front Street Tuesday night.
We'll take the champion's word for it.
It's as good a word as any to describe what he accomplished in a month of mushing this year. He and his dogs won their third straight Yukon Quest between Whitehorse in Canada's Yukon Territory and Fairbanks, took 10 days to regroup and refit, then won the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race from Anchorage to Nome.
"Unprecedented," was how four-time champion Jeff King described such an accomplishment earlier in the Iditarod, before Lance Mackey took command.
The 1,000-mile Yukon Quest and the 1,100-mile Iditarod. Back to back. By a cancer survivor suffering frostbite. A Hollywood writer would have no trouble selling the story.
The numbers add to the story: Lance Mackey won the Iditarod on his sixth try, just like his father, Dick (1978), and half-brother, Rick (1983). Like them, he wore bib number 13.
Is there a way to calculate the odds of this wonderful confluence of numbers and family and gumption actually coming true? For perspective, just what do you compare it to? You probably have to be a dog driver to fully appreciate what Lance Mackey has done. The rest of us can merely cast about for "likes," as in "That's like climbing Mount McKinley, taking a week off and then climbing Mount Everest," or "That's like a pitcher throwing a complete game shutout in the World Series, then coming back the next day on no rest and throwing another one," or "That's like winning the Tour de France, taking a week off, then winning it again against a fresh field of cyclists."
It's like nothing most of us know or ever will.
"Unreal" is an overused word, but not as Lance Mackey used it Tuesday night. He said the word while celebrating the reality of the deed.
After Rick Mackey won in 1983, Dick Mackey said the money was nice but didn't mean anything compared to the champion's belt buckle. The accomplishment and the adventure were for keeps.
Now the Mackeys count three among the 18 Iditarod champions.
The father of the Iditarod, the late Joe Redington Sr., would have had the right words for Lance Mackey:
"You done good."
