Three more teams have scratched from Iditarod 2010.
Rookie Justin Savidis officially scratched at the McGrath checkpoint at 6:15pm Friday afternoon, according to Iditarod’s official Eye on the Trail blog.
Savidis had been forced to remain in McGrath for several days after he lost one of his sled dogs, Whitey, during his team’s run from Nikolai to McGrath on Wednesday afternoon (March 10th). Iditarod rules required Savidis to retrieve his dog before continuing to the next checkpoint; the musher took his mandatory 24-hour layover in McGrath and searched for his dog. By Friday, however, neither Savidis nor the Alaska State Troopers had been successful in recovering Whitey. According to a blog post on Eye on the Trail, Savidis “made the decision to scratch so he could continue his search for his lost dog.” The musher plans to “join local McGrath residents as well as the Iditarod Air Force in the search efforts.”
Veteran musher Ryan Redington also exited Iditarod 38; he scratched in the Galena checkpoint at 3:30pm Saturday afternoon. Redington left the race with 11 dogs and, according to Eye on the Trail, scratched “because some members of his [dog] team were not feeling well.” The musher “felt it was in their best interest” not to continue the race.
Warren Palfrey is the most recent scratch in this year’s Iditarod. The musher scratched in Galena at 7:00pm Saturday evening; he had 10 dogs. Eye on the Trail says that Palfrey’s team exhibited an “inability to continue to compete.”
At the time of writing (12:13am, early Sunday morning), 59 teams remain in Iditarod 38.
