EAGLE, Alaska ñWhen Dawson City musher Peter Ledwidge hits his home town during the Yukon Quest, he won't be going home.

'It would make me feel l'm out of the race,' the musher told reporters Wednesday afternoon at the Eagle checkpoint.

The next checkpoint on the 1,600-kilometre Quest trail is the Dawson checkpoint, a place his dogs were reluctant to leave during last year's race.

Ledwidge was the sixth musher to arrive at the Eagle checkpoint at 11:14 Wednesday morning. He left for the trail at 6:38 p.m.

While he's not with the two front-runners, Zack Steer and Hans Gatt, Ledwidge noted the group of mushers he's seeing a lot of is a bit intimidating.

While he's trying to listen to some of the advice former Quest champions Frank Turner and John Schandelmeier give to him, 'There's also the head games,' Ledwidge said.

'I'm basically doing my own thing. I have my own plan.'

It's not until the last 332 kilometres to Dawson that the musher looks at where his competitors are. Then, if he's within striking distance, he can start cutting rest to make up his time.

'At this time, the object is to get into Dawson with the team that hasn't died enough, like a bad battery you can charge it up to a certain point,' he said.

Ledwidge has one dog that offers a good reading of how the team is doing. Just before the team needs a rest, the dog will start slowing down.

'For the dogs, I'm hoping once I get to Fortymile, they'll have a really fast run because it will counter-balance for when I leave Dawson,' he said.

Along with the dogs not wanting to leave their home community, Ledwidge will have to convince his team not to head home going over King Solomon's Dome.

On that section of trail, if a musher misses the turn-off for the Quest trail, they could end up going toward Ledwidge's house.

'If I lost a team, there I'd have to walk all the way home get it, which is 15 miles,' he said. 'And there's no doubt in my mind they'd head straight for the dog yard.'

The dogs are going to be choked when he makes them take the corner on the Quest trail instead of heading home, he said.

There are about three 83-kilometre runs from Eagle to Dawson, he said.

Ledwidge has been permitting his dogs to have more rest along the trail something he believes will give him an advantage as the race progresses.

'I'm resting them lots,' he said. 'Normally, you run equal run, equal rest, but like a couple of days ago, I gave them an extra three, 3 1/2 hours' rest. And I'm going to do the same here again, an extra two.'

While some might argue Ledwidge will fall behind, he noted the extra time for the dogs will come in handy down the road.

After a long rest in Circle, Alaska, in the group of mushers he's running with, he had the fastest time coming into Slaven's Cabin, he said.

'It was just a wild ride. It was fun.'

The musher hasn't fallen asleep on the runners too often during the race, largely because he wants to take in the experience when his dogs are running fast.

Like numerous mushers in the Quest, Ledwidge is also contending with having female dogs in heat, which means a lot of tangles for him to deal with.

'I tried putting one of the females in heat up front, but then she'll stop to have a pee and tangle up the whole team,' he said. For the next run, he's planning to have his females at the front of the team, he said.

Ledwidge will serve a one-hour penalty in Dawson for not having his dogs properly secured at the Angel Creek, Alaska checkpoint.

When females are in heat, sometimes the dogs can get aggressive. In this case, it resulted in a scrap. That meant Ledwidge lost one of his leaders to a wrist injury early in the race.

This marks Ledwidge's first Quest where he's had at least 12 dogs this late in the race. This is his fifth attempt at the competition.

He's been doing more work, like massages, with his injured dogs rather than dropping them immediately. One dog that was suffering from a shoulder injury isn't limping anymore, he said.

'The extra time I'm spend on them is paying off,' he said.

While Ledwidge was planning to pack light for the trip to Dawson, he noted he will bring some extra kibbles in case he has to make an extra meal for his dogs.

All mushers must rest 36 hours in Dawson. The front-runners were expected to reach the town early this afternoon. The first one in will receive four ounces of gold.

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