TAKOTNA, Alaska -- When Doug Swingley pushed well past the other frontrunners in the 1995 Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race before taking a required 24-hour break, the race's old guard said he'd be sorry.
That's not the way it's done, they said.He's going too far too fast too soon, they said.
His dogs are going to burn out, they said.
But Swingley, from Lincoln, Mont., won the 1995 Iditarod and set a speed record of 9 days and 3 hours in the process. So on Wednesday, when he repeated his bold move, the reaction from the lead pack was more respectful.
"Swingley's in control right now," said Rick Mackey of Nenana, Alaska, who won the 1983 Iditarod. "He's got 14 dogs, and he's well ahead of us."
Five-time winner Rick Swenson of Two Rivers, Alaska, said he was impressed by "how strong Swingley's team appears to be, but that doesn't surprise me. This is where we start shaking things out."
Where most of the leaders chose to serve out their 24-hour layover in this small Athabaskan Indian village, Swingley and three-time Iditarod champion Martin Buser of Big Lake, Alaska, kept going.
Swingley cruised out of Takotna at 8:29 a.m. Alaska time (12:29 EST), about two hours after Buser, in temperatures about 35 degrees below zero. He cut 40 minutes off that difference by reaching Ophir, a gold-rush ghost town 23 miles up the trail, in just under two hours.
Buser settled in at Ophir, 425 miles into the 1,100-mile race from Anchorage to Nome. But Swingley spent only 10 minutes there before pointing his dogs toward Iditarod, another ghost town 90 miles away and the race's official midpoint.
Buser chased at 2 p.m. after resting his dogs for five hours. John Baker of Kotzebue, Alaska, dashed through Ophir at 6:08 p.m. in pursuit of the pace-setting pair.
DeeDee Jonrowe of Willow, Alaska, last year's runner-up, spoke with some awe of Swingley's team.
"I think his (dogs) are speeding up," she said.
Buser, on the other hand, was being looked at by the other elite mushers as being vulnerable. After starting the race with 16 dogs, he was down to a team of 10 at a relatively early stage in the race.
"It's a definite disadvantage," said Vern Halter of Willow, Alaska, who arrived ninth into Takotna on Wednesday with 14 dogs.
Defending champion Jeff King of Denali Park, Alaska, said Buser could get by with 10 dogs, given his skill as a musher and the quality of his team. But any fewer in the next few days would be a problem.
"He's got to be careful -- his margin for error is gone," said King, who is seeking his fourth Iditarod title.
At the McGrath checkpoint late Tuesday, Buser said the six dogs had gotten "sore all over", so he had to continue without them. Still, he said, having only 10 dogs to cover some 750 miles of trail wouldn't alter his race strategy.
"I've got it pretty well detailed out," he said while resting after a frigid 48-mile run from Nikolai. "Ten dogs or not, you've got to do the best you can."
Swenson was third to Takotna, arriving at 3:56 a.m., three minutes ahead of King. After that came Jonrowe, John Barron of Big Lake, Alaska, and Norwegian rookie Harald Tunheim by 6:34 a.m. All were planning to complete their 24-hour layover before proceeding to Ophir.
Tunheim, who races in Europe and teaches mushing at a technical school in northern Norway, has created a buzz within the leaders.
"He's no rookie," King said in Nikolai. "He could win this thing, and wouldn't that turn this race on its ear?"
While feeding his dogs in Takotna, Tunheim said he planned to watch the elite mushers and learn a few things. But he hasn't seen much of them on the trail or in the checkpoints.
"They don't want to talk to me," he said. "Maybe the competition is so tough, they have to concentrate on themselves."
Tunheim said the Iditarod trail was about how he expected it -- the surprise was the work load taking care of his checkpoint routine and how hard it was to get some rest. In his first four days, Tunheim said he's averaged an hour of sleep a day.
"You can't sleep much if you want to stay in front," he said.
A tired-looking Jonrowe said she wasn't planning to take her layover in Takotna, but her 12 dogs were bogging down.
"I could've gotten these guys to Ophir, but they wouldn't have gotten there too fast," she said.
Halter said the race's early pace was faster than he expected. He fell behind on the first two days, but has been battling back.
"I'm trying to get back into the ballgame," he said. "I think Swingley and DeeDee and Swenson are in pretty good shape, but this thing isn't all sorted out yet."