Aiming to elbow his way into the elite corps of distance dog mushers, Allen Moore of Two Rivers held off four-time champion Lance Mackey to reach Dawson shortly after midnight on Thursday to lead the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race at its midpoint.

As a green band of northern lights flickered overhead, Moore guided his team of 12 trotting dogs -- with a sore-wristed 2-year-old Schmoe riding in the sled -- into the chute and to begin a 36-hour break in the town of 25,000. After mushing five days on four hours of sleep, Moore didn’t pause long enough to collect his four ounces as gold worth nearly $7,000 as the first musher to town. He headed off for some sleep. After rest, he fueled up with a big stack of pancakes, eggs and bacon. Then it was back to bed.

Moore, the three-time champion of the Copper Basin 300, has never fared as well in longer races; his sixth-place finish at last year’s Quest is his best effort. But he’s won the sportsmanship award in both the Quest and the Iditarod for helping mushers in distress.

Moore arrived at 12:32 a.m., and his wife Aliy Zirkle, the Quest champion a dozen years ago, guided the family’s dogs through the chute.

“You know,” Moore told the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, “I thought (other mushers) would be here.”

He was nearly right. Mackey was just 21 minutes behind. When Mackey spotted Moore on the Yukon River not far from Dawson, his competitive juices kicked in.

“I saw his light on the river and I started chewing him up,” Mackey told the News-Miner. “I'm looking for the gold nuggets on the other end (of the race),” he said. “I've been setting myself up to race the second half.”

For now, rest and relaxation in Dawson awaits all the mushers. By sunset Thursday, eight other racers had joined the M&M boys (Moore and Mackey) in town. But the hard push on the Yukon River had blown apart what had been a tight pack of racers.

Hugh Neff of Tok reached Dawson 48 minutes after Mackey. Fourth-place Jake Berkowitz of Big Lake was an hour and 25 minutes behind Neff, and fifth place Brent Sass of Fairbanks -- an early race leader -- was two hours, 20 minutes behind Berkowitz. It was another hour and a half back to sixth-place Sonny Lindner, winner of the inaugural Quest in 1984.

Also taking a toll is the unseasonably warm weather.

When Moore pulled into Dawson, the temperature was about 20 degrees -- perhaps 50 degrees warmer than it is some years.

“I really screwed up and I didn’t bring enough (food),” Mackey told Emily Schwing of KUAC-FM. “The warmer the weather the more food they need. I felt a little guilty. I feel like a rookie.”

At some point over a 1,000-mile race, virtually every racer -- even a grizzled 62-year-old veteran like Lindner -- feels like a rookie.

Contact Mike Campbell at mcampbell(at)alaskadispatch.com