Pete Kaiser won the Kuskokwim 300 sled dog race on Sunday, outpacing runner-up Matthew Failor by 10 minutes to win his seventh title in a time of 41 hours, 56 minutes.
It was the second win in a row at the K300 for Kaiser, who has dominated the last decade of the race.
Kaiser won four straight years from 2015-18 as well as in 2020 and 2022 and placed second in 2019 and 2021.
The Bethel musher also won the 2019 Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, becoming the first musher of Yup’ik descent to win the race.
[Pete Kaiser wins his first Iditarod, arriving in Nome as Southwest Alaska’s champion]
It was a historically slow pace for Kaiser, who crossed the finish line in Bethel with 11 dogs at 12:26 p.m. He has won the race in less than 39 hours numerous times.
The race starts in Bethel and heads upriver until mushers reach Kalskag, when they head to Aniak. From there, the teams loop back to the Kuskokwim River and return to the finish in Bethel.
Failor, the 2019 champ, finished in 42:06, arriving at the finish line with eight dogs at 12:36 p.m. The top five were rounded out by Eddie Burke Jr., Jacob Witkop and 2021 K300 champ Richie Diehl.
Also over the weekend, Kwethluk musher Raymond Alexie continued his tremendous run of victories this winter.
He won the Akiak Dash in a time of 16 hours, 54 minutes. He edged runner-up Mike Williams Jr. by 23 minutes.