Monday, March 23, 1998
Copyright 1998 Anchorage Daily News
Red lantern awarded to Pozarnsky
The Associated Press
The slowest musher in this year's Iditarod crossed the finish line Sunday afternoon, winning the red lantern but thinking first about a shower and some shut-eye.
Brad Pozarnsky of Bottineau, N.D., crossed the finish line at 4:42 p.m., turning in the fastest last-place time in the race's 26-year history. His time of 14 days, 5 hours and 42 minutes would have won nine of the races.
Pozarnsky, 45, was the 51st musher to reach Nome. Sixty-three started on March 8 in Willow but 12 scratched along the way.
Pozarnsky is a rookie of the 1,100-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, but he has finished several 500-mile events in the Lower 48, including Montana's Race to the Sky and the John Beargrease in Minnesota.
After crossing the finish line with seven dogs in harness, he said he was tired and needed a shower but sounded upbeat.
"There was no part of this race that was really easy, and there was a surprise between every checkpoint," he said by telephone.
Warm weather and lots of bare ground in the last 300 miles were particular challenges, forcing him to rest during the day and giving his dogs more work as they closed on Nome.
Will he run the Iditarod again? Pozarnsky isn't yet saying. Indeed, he says he hasn't even thought about it.
But he says there's no shame in last place: "My goal was just to finish, and it doesn't matter that I came in last."
After crossing under the burled arch that marks the finish, he was awarded the red lantern, an Alaska mushing tradition that's a symbol of perseverance and a gentle joke.
It's said the final musher is so slow he needs a lantern to light his way home.
Earlier Sunday Cindy Gallea of Seeley Lake, Montana; Matthew Giblin of Wasilla; and Chris Lund of Wasilla also finished.
Jeff King won the race on Tuesday, collecting $51,000 and a new truck.