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 Good morning Iditarodians... overnight the race for first really coalesced into a three team fight to the finish. Defending champion Dallas Seavey looks like he's going to repeat, followed by his father Mitch, also a champion, and Brent Sass, who has run a great race but looks to be fading.
[right: Brent Sass and team on Norton Sound]
Inspection of the Iditaflow race tracker shows that Brent has consistently run longer and slower than both Seaveys, and it doesn't look like he'll have the speed to pass them. Still stranger things have happened (like the finish in 2014), so we watch.
 Aliy Zirkle has consolidated fourth, finishing in the top five yet again (!), and it looks like there's an interesting race shaping up for fifth, with Wade Mars ahead of Peter Kaiser, Joar Leifseth Ulsom, Noah Burmeister, and Nicholas Petit. Jeff King has made it up into the top ten which is amazing considering the attack he suffered at Nulato.
[left: Aliy Zirkle and team approaching Shaktoolik]
 The leaders are just now approaching White Mountain, where they have to take a manditory eight hour break. After that it's a "sprint" of about 100 miles to Nome, along the coast. My algorithms are predicting that Dallas could break his own record of 8 days, 14 hours, so stay tuned for that!
[right: Dallas Seavey and team leave Shaktoolik]
 Meanwhile, here are some more amazing pictures from the trail, taken by musher / blogger / photographer Sebastian Schnuelle. Be sure to follow his updates on Iditarod.com...
[left: Mitch Seavey and team outside Shaktoolik]
 Wade Mars and his team outside Shaktoolik. Wade has run a great race, steady all along, but has been just a tick slower than the Seaveys and Sass.
 Peter Kaiser and his team outside Shaktoolik. Peter is coming on strong and has an outside shot at the top five.
 Here's a great shot of Wade Mars and his team on the ice of Norton Sound. Yes, there is wind. Whew.
 Mitch Seavey and his team on Norton Sound. Unlike a lot of mushers Mitch doesn't "help" by running along the sled or poling. He saves his energy for taking care of his team, and it's worked out well for him. Let's see whether he can catch his son!
 Brent Sass reaches Koyuk (in first!) This will probably be the high point of his race, before he was passed by Dallas and Mitch. Still loving the fluorescent green booties :)
 And speaking of fluorescent, this shot of DeeDee Jonrowe outside Galena. DeeDee hasn't been up with the leaders this year but she's running a solid steady race, and will finish in the top half.
Here's the GPS tracker view as of this morning:
(please click to enbiggen amazingly)
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I thought I'd check in with another 
Checking the slopes of the vertical lines you can see his speed in the past 100 miles was at least as good as Mitch's, and considerably faster than Brent's. He is not quite on pace to beat his record of 8 days 14 hours, but he could pick it up in the Nome stretch and yet beat it. That would have him finishing at 4:00AM in the morning Alaska Time.
Fourth place Aliy Zirkle is six hours behind; she's also in White Mountain in her break, and although she's run a great race as usual she is probably out of it. Fifth place Wade Mars is just getting to White Mountain, closely pursued by Peter Kaiser. 
They're going to have quite a race for top five, and I'd have to give the edge to Peter based on apparent running speed. Also in the hunt are Norwegians Joar Leifseth Ulsom, about an hour behind Wade and Peter, and Ralph Johannessen, about 1:30 behind.
Here are some more cool shots from the route, as usual taken by 
Nice shot of Wade Mars and his team pulling into Elim. He waited just long enough to leave Elim before Peter Kaiser got there; they're going to have quite a race to White Mountain.
And here is Peter Kaiser and his team, flying out of Elim toward White Mountain. Currently he has over 1mph on Wade (8 vs 7), that could be enough to move into the top five.
Noah Burmeister's team in Elim, raring to go. They are definitely in the competition for best dressed with snazzy jackets and matching boots.
Here's an interesting shot of 10th place Jeff King and his team pulling into Elim. Jeff is quite an innovator; he pioneered the "caboose" behind the main sled, and now has this interesting stovepipe / cooker arrangement for heating dog water and dog food quickly. Jeff seems to have recovered amazingly from that unfortunate incident in Nulato.
I sometimes often like rereading old posts, and just came across this one, which seems particularly apt given current debates about Socialism and Obamacare: 
