March 10: Halfway Point At Iditarod
The checkpoint closest to the middle of the race on odd-numbered years is the trail's namesake, the historic gold rush ghost town of Iditarod (meaning "far distant place").
Iditarod: Sørlie wins the Dorothy G. Page Halfway Award and US$ $4,000 in gold nuggets when he arrives at Iditarod on March 10 at 1:41 am.pdf While the Halfway Award is sometimes considered a jinx, Sørlie also won it before his victory in 2003. He was followed by Brooks an hour later, then Buser. Paul Gebhardt becomes the first musher to depart the midpoint at 5:59 pm. The top 10 stretched over 14 hours, and the top 30 over 24 hours.
Standings through the Interior can be deceptive because all mushers are required to take one mandatory 24-hour layover during the race, usually at Takotna, McGrath, or Iditarod. The differential in starting times is adjusted during this period, and most of the racers were on a level playing field after Iditarod.
Read more about this topic: 2005 Iditarod
Famous quotes containing the words march, halfway and/or point:
“‘Oh beat the drum slowly and play the fife lowly,
Play the Dead March as you carry me along;
Take me to the green valley, there lay the sod o’er me,
For I’m a young cowboy and I know I’ve done wrong.”
—Unknown. As I Walked Out in the Streets of Laredo (l. 5–8)
“No; truth, being alive, was not halfway between anything. It was only to be found by continuous excursions into either realm, and though proportion is the final secret, to espouse it at the outset is to ensure sterility.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
“What we are, that only can we see. All that Adam had, all that Caesar could, you have and can do. Adam called his house, heaven and earth; Caesar called his house, Rome; you perhaps call yours, a cobbler’s trade; a hundred acres of ploughed land; or a scholar’s garret. Yet line for line and point for point, your dominion is as great as theirs, though without fine names. Build, therefore, your own world.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)