As of late this morning, Yukon Quest leader Hugh Neff of Skagway arrived at Mile 101 one minute ahead of Lance Mackey of Kasilof, Alaska.

CENTRAL, Alaska Warm weather took its toll on the Yukon Quest's lead mushers Tuesday evening.

'The trail is bad. It was very soft. It was like a rut in the snow that you are supposed to follow,' said Jon Little, who was the first musher into Central.

The mild weather meant teams were travelling more slowly than normal.

'It was pretty nasty,' said Hugh Neff, who was third into town, arriving a little after 10 p.m. Tuesday.

He spent his time coming into Central kicking and pushing the sled.

'It's like sand out there,' Neff said, adding that mushers have just set the record for the slowest run between Circle and Central.

Upon arriving in Central, Neff asked where Little was. He was surprised to learn his competitor was only half an hour ahead. Neff thought Little would be a lot faster.

'We were just standing still out there,' he said.

Because of the balmy weather, Neff, who was travelling with Lance Mackey, was taking it easy after leaving Circle.

'We were discussing how we were going to spend our winnings and all of a sudden, Little comes flying by us,' he said. 'We were like: Holy crap.''

When Little zipped by him, Neff thought: 'Damn, he's good.'

He described Little as a thinking man's musher, as he is very analytical.

Both Mackey, who was second into Central, and Neff arrived looking exhausted.

'This is the most out of it I've been the whole race, said Neff, with a cup of coffee in hand. 'This is the Quest, you know. This is what it's all about.'

Mackey said the stretch into Central has been the worst part of the race.

'We were spoiled (on the Canadian side), and all of a sudden, we get a trail that was the typical Yukon Quest, and here I am whining about it.'

Mackey would have liked to have blown through Central and been resting at the foot of Eagle Summit, but after the harsh trail conditions, there was no way. His dogs needed rest.

Little's dog team came into Central at around 9:30 last night.

When people got word that a dog team was half an hour away, they ran outside to wait. They stood around a fire pit while snow plows drove by trying to clear the closed highway after a recent snowstorm.

Media representatives tried to mob Little as he came in, but race officials held them back, giving the musher a chance to have his dogs checked over by veterinarians.

When the NBC television network ignored the judge's warning, running past officials, an Alaskan radio reporter yelled ,'If that man goes there, I'm f---ing following him.'

A race judge had to argue with the NBC cameraman to keep him away from Little and his dogs.

Later, while Little was eating a garden salad with French dressing, he told reporters that while coming into Circle earlier this morning, he had been trying to keep his runs under seven hours. He was also trying to keep up to Mackey and Neff, who were first into that town.

Little was having a miserable time being snowed on that morning, so he shot threw Circle to scare his competitors, who had been resting there for four hours. He camped out a little past Circle instead.

'I thought that would give me an advantage, but when Lance and Hugh came in right behind me (in Central), obviously, it didn't work,' said Little. 'I had one less rest in the bank, but they didn't have a problem with it; they are moving beautifully.'

Ideally, Little would like to be four hours ahead of his competition, instead of just a half-hour.

'That's nothing. The way Lance is moving, he should probably be able to make that up,' said Little.

The 40-year-old says Mackey has a good chance of winning the 1,600-kilometre race, which began in Whitehorse Feb. 13.

'But I don't want to make it easy for him. He'll have to work for it,' Little said.

He plans to give his dogs a long break in Central before climbing Eagle Summit.

Former frontrunner Gerry Willomitzer fell behind after a runner on his sled broke coming into Circle.

Willomitzer had been travelling with Little when he went over a crevasse, and the runner snapped right in half.

'He handled it really well,' said Little.

Willomitzer had to fix it with some ropes. Once he got into Circle, he jerry-rigged it with a piece of aluminum Little gave him.

The frazzled musher received no penalties for using a drill given to him to make the repairs, as it's a tool that's available to everyone.

'If he got a part out of his truck, that would be a two-hour penalty,' said race judge Michael Hyslop, from Whitehorse.

Willomitzer has had two sleds offered to him. However, if he accepted, he would receive an eight-hour penality. That means he would have to wait that time out at the next checkpoint.

The musher also could have gotten a new runner sent in from Fairbanks. But Hyslop said it would be like going to his truck, so Willomitzer would have received a two-hour penalty, plus having to wait for the runner to get there.

Hyslop said Willomitzer seemed in good spirits upon leaving the checkpoint.

'I think he has some comfort knowing that there is a sled waiting for him if that one does pack it in,' said Hyslop.

The wobbly runner didn't look good when Willomitzer left Circle, the most northerly point in the race.

'He could be standing on one runner a lot,' said Hyslop. 'Circle to Central shouldn't be too bad on it because it's a pretty good run down. The summit would be tough because he's going to need that runner. '

The race judge says broken sleds are pretty common.

'We've had some bad years where mushers have busted up a lot of sleds,' he said. 'Ed Hopkins had a good little sled repair business in Carmacks last year.'

Willomitzer was sixth into Central this morning. He arrived at 2:48 a.m., two hours behind William Kleedehn.

The fifth-place musher said he let others pass him on the trail so his dogs could get a rest while travelling at a slower pace.

'I'm not concerned where I finish,' said Kleedehn, of Carcross. 'It's just been an interesting race.'

A snowstorm blew into Central Tuesday, creating major drifts along the roads.

Race marshal Mike McCowan tried to send vets to the Mile 101 checkpoint before the highway was closed. The vets have to be at all the stops to help mushers with any problem dogs.

A veterinarian assistant, June Ryan, from North Pole, Alaska, got stuck in a snowdrift with another vet on their way to the dog drop. Someone from the Steese Roadhouse in Central had to ride up on a snowmachine to rescue them, taking the pair to their destination.

McCowan said race officials were waiting for snow plows to clear the roads so they could meet the mushers at the checkpoint.

Many mushers got lost on their way to Circle after trail markers were blown down.

'That river's been brutal out there,' said Hyslop. 'I'm sure we'll hear some horror stories. It's the Yukon River. It blows. It's just the way it is.'

'The trail wasn't marked because it couldn't be. It was on glare ice,' said Little. 'You can't stick anything in glare ice.'

Mackey and Neff, the first ones through, became lost, leading all the other mushers astray, who later followed their tracks through the jumble ice.

'Their trail was zig-zagging back and forth, over the ice and sometimes it seems like Lance's dogs were aiming to go over the nastiest parts,' said Little.

Although he knew Mackey and Neff were lost, he kept following their head lamps until the leaders found their way back to the real trail.

'I thought it was pretty funny,' Little said.

Neff said the trail will likely be pretty drifty going up Eagle Summit.

'What happened here is these guys (the Alaskans) didn't put the trail in until a couple of days ago, and trying to put a trail in in warm weather ain't going to happen.'

He said the Canadian side of the race was immaculate. Of the Alaskan side: 'They want to make sure you remember what race you're in.'

Second-placer Mackey said he fantasized about being a frontrunner in the race, and 'now, here it is. I hope I don't fall off my sled and wake up to find it's all been a big dream,' he said.

The 34-year-old throat cancer survivor knows his family is proud. Mackey's father founded the Iditarod and his brother won both that race and the Quest.

The question now becomes who will be the first to climb Eagle Summit.

'If Lance wants to get a jump, he's more than welcome,' said Little. 'It's the next scary thing in front of me, and I'll just have to go do it. Hopefully, it won't be too bad.'

Neff is hoping Little will be the one to lead him and Mackey up the summit.

'We'll let him enjoy that privilege,' he said. 'The one thing about mushing is you are always trying to conserve what you got.'

In the end, Little was the first racer to leave Central. He left at 4:45 a.m. Neff and Mackey were minutes behind him.

Kleedehn said the 1,105-metre (3,685-foot) Eagle Summit is just a hill.

Mackey said he is very focused and wants to win. Although he is travelling with Neff, the race is not about friends right now.

'We're having a good time, but if we're racing down Front Street, I don't think I'd be looking over, smiling,' Mackey said between mouthfuls of steak and a baked potato. 'It's a race.'

Sebastian Schnuelle, who was slightly behind the lead group leaving Circle, had to turn around and go back to the checkpoint because his dogs were sick.

When Schnuelle, a Whitehorse resident, was ready to leave Circle later on at around 4:56 a.m., all the other mushers had passed on.

Bruno Baureis, from Gakona, Alaska, was the eighth musher to scratch at around 11 p.m. Tuesday. The 45-year-old quit after suffering back problems.

Other mushers liked to tease Baureis about his size because he's three times the size of some of the others.