Two days after his 35th birthday, musher Brent Sass of Eureka celebrated a distance-mushing victory, something that barely eluded him 11 months ago.
Sass crossed the Meiers Lake finish line at 1:12 a.m. Sunday to win the Gin Gin 200 Sled Dog Race, the first distance race of the season in Alaska.
Sass was 20 minutes ahead of Matt Hall of Eagle, who placed third in last year's Yukon Quest. Paul Gebhardt of Kasilof, a two-time runner-up in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, was third, six minutes behind Hall.
Sass's triumph followed tragedy 11 months earlier in the Quest when he was running neck and neck with Allen Moore, the eventual champion.
Only about 100 miles of the 1,000-mile trail from Fairbanks to Whitehorse remained when a fatigued Sass nodded off and fell off the back of his sled, smacking his head on lake ice and briefly becoming separated from his dog team.
Suffering symptoms of a concussion, Sass eventually scratched -- losing out on thousands of dollars of prize money that even a second or third-place finish would have provided, as well as what would have been the best finish of his career. He subsequently scratched from the Iditarod.
In the 200-mile Gin Gin, however, there were no such problems.
"Words can't describe how proud I am of this team," Sass wrote on his Facebook page after the race. "We finished with all 10 happy and healthy. We held off some awesome dog teams in the final 86 miles."
The trail went from Meiers Lake to Alpine Creek Lodge near the Denali Highway before returning. After a winter of unseasonably warm temperatures, Gin Gin mushers saw nighttime lows sink to minus-20 and below.
Distance mushing continues this week with the Copper Basin 300, which begins Saturday in Glennallen. A full field of 50, including some who raced the Gin Gin, is entered.
Gin Gin 200
Top 20 finishers
1) Brent Sass, 1:12 a.m.; 2) Matt Hall, 1:32 a.m.; 3) Paul Gebhardt, 1:38 a.m.; 4) Tom Lesatz, 1:43 a.m.; 5) Paige Drobny, 1:57 a.m.; 6) Sebastian Schnuelle, 2:02 a.m.; 7) Colby Strathe, 2:51 a.m.; 8) Wade Marrs, 3:02 a.m.; 9) Raelyn Stover, 4:03 a.m.; 10) Pato Geron, 4:04 a.m.; 11) Ken Anderson, 4:25 a.m.; 12) Zoya DeNure, 4:29 a.m.; 13) Charley Benja, 4:29 a.m.; 14) Torsten Kohnert, 4:30 a.m.; 15) Kristy Berington, 4:40 a.m.; 16) Timofel Gynuntegin, 4:51 a.m.; 17) Anna Berington, 4:57 a.m.; 18) Joar Ulsom, 5:08 a.m.; 19) Mydzung Thi Daug, 5:10 a.m.; 20) Nina Schwinghammer, 6:04 a.m.
Correction: The start day of the Copper Basin 300 was incorrect in an earlier version of this story.