By the village of Koyuk - about 170 miles from the finish line - the question had become not would he win a second championship but by how much.

His lead on three-time champion Martin Buser of Big Lake had grown to almost nine hours, and Swingley's team was continuing to pull away. Not since 1992 has anyone been so far in front on the coast.

Buser beat four-time champ Susan Butcher by 10 hours that year. Swingley could end with an even wider gap over the rest of the field.

"There's not many Iditarods where a guy finds himself this far out in front and not having anybody breathing down his throat," Swingley said as he left Unalakleet on Sunday.

Five-time champ Rick Swenson of Two Rivers, fighting to hang onto third place in this year's race, said Swingley had a good dog team and got lucky with the weather. The musher from Lincoln, Mont., hit the Iditarod checkpoint in the Interior just before a snowstorm that slowed his pursuers, Swenson said, and Swingley got off the Yukon River just before the headwinds turned brutal.

Those winds forced the team of DeeDee Jonrowe of Willow to give up and lay down. She later scratched.

Swenson and defending Iditarod champ Jeff King from Denali Park, another three-time winner, had similar problems with dogs that didn't want to go into the wind, but they managed to press on after camping out to rest.

Still, they lost time, and Swenson was busy looking over his shoulder Monday.

"They're creeping up," he said. "You don't see them for days, and then all of a sudden they're right here."

Just behind him were Charlie Boulding of Manley, Vern Halter of Willow, King, Paul Gebhardt of Kasilof, Mitch Seavey of Seward, John Baker and Ed Iten of Kotzebue, and Bill Cotter of Nenana.

Those eight - along with Ramey Smyth of Big Lake, Linwood Fiedler of Willow and Sven Engholm and Harald Tunheim - have been almost daily reordering the race's top 10.

First and second might have been decided in the race, but with a long way left to go, the rest of the positions in the top 15 are far from settled.

Anchorage Daily News
Anchorage, Alaska

Thursday
March 18, 1999