It's a three way race

Fans followed through the night (I passed out around midnight. I'm too old for this, man! lol), others woke up to the early morning news to see that Aaron Burmeister and Brent Sass had caught and passed Dallas Seavey in Nikolai. The race leader to that point made the decision to rest a few hours in the checkpoint before continuing down the trail. In a pre-race recorded video on his youtube channel that dropped today, Dallas explained his strategy for this part of the race. Essentially, Dallas is planning to break up the run to Rainy Pass with just a quick pass through Rohn (cuz, you know, checkpoints). In his video he expected that most teams would do the same. So far he's right.

While Burmeister and Sass left Dallas in Nikolai they both chose to stop just a few miles out to camp. Dallas overtook them and now has about a 17 mile lead (if we can trust the trackers). While Sass is technically still right there with Seavey and Burmeister, he has allowed Ryan Redington to get with him. It's honestly surprising to see Ryan keep up as his dogs just seem not as peppy. It could be more than Brent is still healing from a broken collar bone suffered about 7 weeks ago. This section of trail is painful in the best of health, and it could be that this is where we leave Sass to the chase pack. It will really depend on just how healthy Brent is and if there's any significant pain going on.

This is also a section of trail that the trackers aren't always pinging so it'll be up to Iditarod checkers to get the info to the comms quickly so we can know just how teh teams look against each other.

The chase pack has a few familiar faces we haven't seen in a while (Joar has made a move and it looks like Diehl is also trying to make a play). Pete Kaiser pulled back last night and has now reportedly decided to scratch in the best interest of his team. His team posted earlier today that his dogs were feeling under the weather, so his decision truly was in the best interest of the team. The 2019 Iditarod Champion really is one of the best.

Don't expect to do much else but watch the trackers for the next 24-36 hours. This race is going to be nailbiting for those wanting any number of outcomes... and pretty soon we'll see just how the Gorge factors in to all of this (will they all wish for "the Blowhole" on the coast).