That's a lot of ifs, but Swingley, the Lincoln, Mont., musher who notched his second Iditarod championship Wednesday, said his dog team was lightning on a leash. "This was an incredibly fast dog team," he said.

Swingley's winning time was 9 days, 14 hours, 31 minutes. He set the course record time of 9 days, 2 hours, 42 minutes in 1995. He was less than three hours shy of breaking the 8-day barrier that year, and he thinks this team was faster. Several times, Swingley called it an "out-of-control" team. "I just figured, 'If they can do it, why slow them down?' " he said. "I broke so many sleds this year, I'm going to take a driving course from Rick Swenson." It was certainly a pace-setting team. Swingley went to the front early and stayed there. Martin Buser of Big Lake went with him and hung on to finish second. DeeDee Jonrowe of Willow tried to go with him and ended up having to scratch. "You can't be a follower in this race," said Swingley. "The only way to win it is to think up something new. You've got to think up something brand new and go in swinging."

Swingley's not moving north

Race marshal Mark Nordman from Grand Marais, Minn., said there appears to be some Alaskan backlash to Swingley because he is the only non-Alaskan winner. "There are certain people who play it up," said Nordman. "They play it up when a woman wins. When a musher from Norway wins, it will be worse." Swingley said that if some Alaskans hold his nonresident status against him, "It doesn't bother me. It's up to them to change. I'm not going to move. I'm a Montanan and proud of it."

Late rush gains Halter 3rd

Vern Halter of Willow finished third with a time of 10 days, 6 hours, 40 minutes. It was his best showing ever. He did it running a style opposite of Swingley's.

Halter started cautiously but came on strong in the second half of the race.

"It was a real slow start for me," said Halter, who was 27th at the race's midpoint. Then, he began picking off other teams. He stormed past defending champ Jeff King and 22 other teams between the Iditarod checkpoint and the Bering Coast village of Elim. He reeled in five-time champ Rick Swenson on the the last leg to Nome to improve two places on his previous best finish of fifth in 1997. By late in the race, Halter said, he was running as fast as Swingley, but by then the Montanan had too much of a lead for anyone to hope to catch him.

"I may have been outdogged totally," Halter said.

Vaughan expedition reaches Nome

Norman Vaughan, the 93-year-old adventurer and former Iditarod musher from Anchorage, organized a 31-person expedition from Nenana to Nome to commemorate the famed, 1925 diptheria serum run. He arrived in Nome by snowmobile as the Iditarod was finishing. His group spent 17 days on the trail, battling some intense cold. Vaughan had dark marks on both cheeks. "Oh, what's a little frostbite," he said.

Swingley's lucky cap

Iditarod champ Doug Swingley took some teasing about the goofy red-and-black-checked cap with ear flaps he wore during this year's race. The hat was almost a duplicate of Big Lake musher Martin Buser's trademark hat with ear flaps. At the finish line, making like basketball star Dennis Rodman tossing a game jersey to the crowd, Swingley flung the hat to fans. He got the hat as a joke, he said, but after he wore it to victory in the Kuskokwim 300 Sled Dog Race in January he started to get superstitious about ditching it. Eventually, he said, he decided to flip it before he got too attached. "I'll get myself a new $10 hat," said Swingley. He described the chapeau as "a Montana rancher Scotch cap. Martin Buser, from Switzerland, just happened to have one."

$60,000 will go to champion

Swingley was handed a large, cardboard check for $54,000 at the race's finish line in Nome, but his cash payout will almost surely be $60,000. The $54,000 check from sponsor National Bank of Alaska represented the winner's share of a guaranteed minimum purse of $450,000. Sales of $100 raffle tickets will push the actual purse to $500,000. Iditarod executive director Stan Hooley said there were only 41 tickets remaining with five days until the postrace banquet. He had no doubt the tickets will sell out.

- By S.J. Komarnitsky and Lew Freedman