| | NOME, Alaska -- Defending champion Doug Swingley drove his
dog team to victory Tuesday in the 1,100-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog
Race, breaking his previous record and joining an elite group of
Alaskans who are three-time winners.
Swingley, of Lincoln, Mont., passed under the burled arch
marking the finish line on Front Street in this Gold Rush town at
10:58 a.m.
|  | | Doug Swingley poses with his lead dogs Cola, left, and
Stormy after winning his third Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race on Tuesday. |
His team of 11 dogs trotted down the snow-covered street as a
light wind blew and cheering fans crowded the finish chute.
"This is a great team, they just kept getting better and
better," Swingley said, patting the dogs.
Swingley completed the race in 9 days, 58 minutes. The previous
race record, set by Swingley in 1995, was 9 days, 2 hours, 42
minutes.
Paul Gebhardt of Kasilof followed more than five hours later to
take second place.
For his first-place finish, Swingley wins $60,000 of a record
$525,000 purse and a new pickup truck worth more than $37,000. Race
money was to be awarded to the first 30 finishers.
Swingley is the only non-Alaskan ever to win the race.
As Swingley was planning for this year's race, he calculated
that if everything went perfectly, it would take him 8 days, 17
hours to get from Anchorage to Nome.
"The run times were awful close to 'perfect world' stuff," he
said.
Mushers had relatively balmy conditions for the entire race,
with sunny skies and temperatures often climbing into the 30s
during the day.
Swingley joins Jeff King of Denali Park, Alaska, and Martin
Buser of Big Lake, Alaska in the three-time winners circle. Susan
Butcher of Manley, Alaska, who last competed in 1994, has won four
times. Rick Swenson of Two Rivers, Alaska, is the race's only
five-time winner.
His consecutive victory makes him the third musher to
successfully defend his title. Butcher had back-to-back victories
in 1986, 1987 and 1988. Swenson had consecutive victories in 1981
and 1982.
Eighty-one teams began the race, which had its ceremonial start
March 4 in Anchorage. By the time Swingley finished, 70 teams
remained on the trail.
Swingley broke out of the pack early in the race, pushing
himself far ahead of the other frontrunners before taking his
24-hour break. It's a strategy that helped him win the race in 1995
and 1999.
He was the first musher to arrive in the Interior village of
Ruby, the half-way mark on the trail, and he never relinquished his
lead for the remainder of the race.
Gebhardt led the race for the first
couple of days and tried to remain within striking distance in the
second half. But by the time he reached White Mountain, 77 miles
from the finish line, he was more than five hours behind Swingley.
"I was trying to catch him but I can't catch someone who's
faster than me," Gebhardt said. "I really had thought of winning.
I said at the start of the race the team could win. We just didn't
have the speed."
Swingley said good dog breeding and a serious training regimen
helped his team win. Near his home in Lincoln, Mont., Swingley has
a 150-mile training run to prepare the dogs to go long distances.
"I get them prepared. I don't mess around," he said. "We just
start camping out and end up doing lengthy training runs."
He breeds dogs that have super endurance and when he trains, he
doesn't hold the dogs back.
"I just let them go wide open," he said. "They are really
resilient."
Swingley decided to try and break his own record finish time
when he reached the Koyuk checkpoint, 171 miles from the finish
line. He drove his team for more than 10 hours to reach White
Mountain on Monday, where teams are required to take an eight-hour
rest.
Swingley said he never considered Gebhardt a threat.
"I'm way faster than he is," Swingley said. "He didn't chase
me very hard. I didn't even see him."
The ever-confident Swingley didn't have much sympathy for the
other mushers he left behind on the Iditarod trail.
"I gave them all an opportunity when the race started. We all
had an even shot."
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