While musher Brent Sass has gained the prize for being the first to reach the halfway point of the 2021 Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, he has not completed either of the required 8-hour or 24-hour rest periods. As of the morning of March 11, he is resting his team at the Iditarod Checkpoint.
Sass and the two other mushers that came in after him are at the Iditarod Checkpoint watching for four-time winner Dallas Seavey, who is leading a pack of over a dozen teams still on their way to the halfway mark. All of the teams racing to the midpoint, including Seavey and local mushers Pete Kaiser and Richie Diehl, completed their mandatory 24-hour rests in McGrath. All of the mushers will then turn around and head back down the trail toward the finish line at Deshka Landing.
Two teams, Aaron Burmeister and Ryan Redington, are about seven hours behind Seavey and have completed both their required 8-hour and 24-hour rests. If they can keep up the pace, they could become the leaders as they run in the second half of this year’s Iditarod.