Susan Butcher Wins Iditarod Race for Third Straight Time

Susan Butcher left the competition behind on the icy Bering Sea coast and mushed through bone-chilling winds Wednesday to score her third straight victory in the 1,150-mile Iditarod Trail sled dog race.

Butcher, 33, collected a $30,000 first prize by urging her nine-dog team into the finish chute at 8:43 p.m., AST, several hours ahead of her closest rival in the 16th annual Anchorage-to-Nome trek. She had been on the trail for more than 11 days.

Hundreds of cheering fans braved the blustery, 15-degree weather to watch as Butcher became the first musher to win three consecutive Iditarods. Butcher started the race with 17 dogs but dropped eight at checkpoints along the trail.

“I’m really happy,” said Butcher’s husband, Dave Monson, who earlier this month won another long-distance Alaska sled dog race, the 1,000-mile Yukon Quest. The couple run a kennel in the interior Alaska village of Manley.

“We’ve had a tremendous year,” Monson said. “It shows that hard work pays off sometimes.”

Butcher’s closest competitor, Martin Buser of Big Lake, was trailing by at least 14 hours Wednesday. Butcher’s longtime rival, four-time Iditarod champion Rick Swenson of Two Rivers, was just a few minutes behind Buser in third place.

Joe Garnie of Teller was running fourth, and 70-year-old Joe Redington of Knik, who organized the first Iditarod in 1973 but has never won the race, was fifth.

Butcher had slept little since Monday, when she reached the Bering coast at Unalakleet, 229 miles from Nome. She said a training run last month along the windy coast accustomed her team to the punishing conditions.

Tuesday night, Butcher guided her team through subzero temperatures and winds that brought the wind-chill factor down to minus-70 degrees. Peeking out from a fur-ruffed parka, Butcher suffered only a frost-nipped wrist.

“The wind was going right into my big mitt and up my arm. It’s still pretty sore,” she said earlier Wednesday.