Early this morning, Iditarod's top five are bundled together in a two-mile-long knot, occasionally changing the lead as one team stops to change out booties or another momentarily stops to snack the team.

To the front, Bob Bundtzen, veteran musher with an assembled elite team, remains the surprise member of the elite pack. Bundtzen is easily traveling with well-known front-runners Martin Buser, Lance Mackey, Hugh Neff, and Ray Redington, Jr. Five miles back, but within striking distance, Gebhardt and Schnuelle constitute Tuesday's morning lead pack.

The Nikolai Burn section of the trail is not technical. In fact, mushers traveling alone often find themselves in a daydream as the team trots on a straight trail across a flat, burnt landscape, dotted with a 20-year-old re-growth of short spruce and brush. Occasionally, the trail crosses a small lake or darts through willows across a small creek to break the rhythm of the sled's gentle rolling across the tundra. Otherwise, the relief of having survived the Happy Valley Steps, the Dalzell Gorge, the Post River barrens, and the devastation of the new Farewell Lakes burn just behind, decompresses the tired musher.

However, our front pack is experiencing a new kind of anxiety. How are they going to play the next day to maximize and leverage their position as they approach the mandatory 24-hour break?

I called my counterpart Doug Swingley, the four-time champion, this morning and found some consensus:

Buser, not surprisingly, seems to be driving the fastest team. This has always been his trademark, especially on good, flat trails like the one across the Nikolai Burn. He took a six-hour rest in Rohn, and we think he will stop at his habitual rest spot as the trail intersects the Salmon River. Here, he will take a six-hour break and aim his team to McGrath. Usually, he ends up quietly spending a solitary 24-hour break in Ophir. Only a few other mushers like Ophir for a 24.

Mackey and Hugh Neff (who is driving a very lively team this year) are likely to continue past Buser's rest spot on the Salmon River and continue to Nikolai. Doug and I think that is a good advantage because they have economized on rest stops. In fact, for what it's worth, we think Mackey and Neff have created a four-hour advantage just because they played a strategy option to their advantage.

Mackey likes to aim his team at Takotna, so we suspect he will take a long, six- or seven-hour rest in Nikolai. At Takotna, Mackey will decide to declare his 24 or, after analyzing the possibilities, push on to the halfway point at Iditarod. Probably he will stop in Takotna.

Bob Bundtzen is not a veteran we have seen at the front in past years, but he knows the trail and understands the interplay of strategy. It will be a nice sidebar to see how he plays the next two days. Certainly, the speed of his team matches Buser, Neff, Redington, and Mackey.

On an interest level, we find Paul Gebhardt to be our most engaging musher for the moment. Usually, Paul is known to have trained his dogs to be methodical, in the style of Lance Mackey's Marathon strategy. In other words, he intentionally trains his dogs to travel at a speed that is slightly below their natural inclination. Because of this, his team is always capable of 10- or 12-hour sojourns between a major rest, and is accustomed to eating snacks regularly on the trail,and conserving energy. Paul always has in reserve a couple of iron-headed leaders that can plough through deep snow, winds, and cold. He has built a reputation on being prepared for worst weather contingencies -- handy on the Bering Sea Coast a week from now.

Gebhardt has experimented in the past by pushing far beyond the pack to take his twenty-four hour break. In fact, he has traveled 150 miles beyond the resting pack to take his 24 on the Yukon River, He knows how to do this, and with his team of easy travelers, that's not a bad plan. Using this strategy, he often has one the fastest teams on the last third of the race along the Bering Sea coast. We wouldn't be surprised to see Paul Gebhardt bolt and march past Iditarod to take his 24 on the Yukon River -- maybe Anvik.

This year, it seems that his team has more speed than we have seen in the past. Star this musher; he looks like a contender.