March 23, 2004
IT'S OVER
The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race came to an official end yesterday Perry Solmonson came in 77th, with a time of 15 days 2 hours 50 minutes and 36 seconds. For that effort, he got to blow out the "widow's lamp" as the Red Lantern winner, after he crossed under the burled arch finish line in Nome.
For the record, the winner was Mitch Seavey of Seward, who crossed after 9 days 12 hours 20 minutes and 22 seconds.
Here's the great thing about the Iditarod, they hold the victory banquet even before the last musher gets off the trail. Gotta love that. Want a free meal? Get to Nome before dinner starts, pal.
Last year's Red Lantern winner was Russell Bybee, who took 44th and last place with a time of 15 days, five hours, 30 minutes and 53 seconds.
Considering that the first Red Lantern winner in 1973, John Schultz, completed the race in 32 days, Perry has plenty to be proud of. They say in aviation that every safe landing is a good landing. So goes mushing. Every trip across the Iditarod finish line is a good finish.
There's not a lot of room in Nome at the end of the race. Front Street, the main drag in town, is about 100 yards off the frozen Bering Sea. Dog teams are taken out to the ocean front and staked to the ice. There they are fed and bed down on straw until an airplane is available to fly them back home.
Snow actually has to be trucked in to Front Street to make the finish chute.
Oh, and there's only one parking meter in town.
To get a little better sense of how weird the ceremonial start of the race in Anchorage is, here are several pages of photo galleries taken along Fourth Avenue. In some of them you can see the blue and gravel facade of my old newspaper, The Anchorage Times.
