Only five mushers were able to win the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in the decade of the '90s. One of them, 1990 winner Susan Butcher from Eureka, won in 1990, then four years later, after finishing 10th, retired to become a mother. Another of them, Rick Swenson from Two Rivers, embraced a brutal storm on a death-defying march from the White Mountain checkpoint along the Bering Sea Coast to Nome in 1991. Victory No. 5 for Swenson crowned him the all-time Iditarod champ, putting him one up on Butcher, his archrival throughout the 1980s. But Swenson, like Butcher, would not visit the winner's circle again in the decade, because the '90s really belonged to three very similar and very different mushers: Jeff King from Denali Park, Martin Buser from Big Lake, and defending champion Doug Swingley from Lincoln, Mont. All three are back in the $525,000 competition that begins today on Fourth Avenue in downtown Anchorage at 10 a.m. All three claim to have their best dog teams ever, or something close to that, for the 28th annual 1,100-mile race. All three say they expect to win. If anyone asks where the road to Iditarod victory and the $60,000 winner's prize runs, the answer is simple: It runs through King, Buser and Swingley. Buser counters that Vern Halter of Willow, Charlie Boulding of Manley, Ramy Brooks of Healy, Paul Gebhardt of Kasilof and a few others "would probably take issue with that," but none of those mushers has a single Iditarod victory. Swingley returns with an altitude-trained team he claims to be his best, while he looks leaner and fitter than a year ago. "If you're going to be worried (about the competition)," King said, "that's where the worry lies." Of the 81 teams in the race this year, King sees only five or six capable of winning. He won't name them specifically, but it's clear Buser is on the list with Swingley. "I don't think Martin has really showed his hand," King said. "You've got to look at the record." The record is telling. Buser was never out of the top 10 in the 1990s. King was 12th in only his second Iditarod in 1991; he never finished lower than seventh after that. Swingley started his Iditarod career with a ninth-place finish and rookie-of-the-year honors in 1992, which marked his worst finish in eight Iditarods. Purely statistically, there are only a handful of other mushers in the same league: * DeeDee Jonrowe from Willow, who before being forced to scratch last year had never finished worse than ninth in the 1990s and was second twice. * Swenson, who had his worst Iditarod in 21 years with an 11th place finish in 1998, but rebounded to fourth last year amid speculation he might be losing his enthusiasm for the sport. * Tim Osmar from Clam Gulch, a dominating player early in the '90s with eight consecutive top-10 finishes before stumbling to 17th in 1998 and 18th last year. * Halter with six top-10 finishes and a worst of 11th back in '94. * Boulding and 1983 Iditarod champ Rick Mackey from Nenana, who both had five top-10 finishes. They also share the distinction of knowing how to win. Mackey has done it in both the Iditarod and the 1,000-mile Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race between Fairbanks and Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. Boulding has twice won the Interior sled-dog ultramarathon. A handful of others need to be considered wild cards: * The Kenai Cruisers: Gebhardt, the winner of the Copper Basin 300 Sled Dog race this year, and Mitch Seavey, a two-time past champ in that competition. Both have challenged in previous Iditarods. * The Western Wonders: John Baker from Kotzebue, a two-time top-10 finisher since his Iditarod debut in 1996; and neighbor Ed Iten from the nearby village of Ambler in Western Alaska. Iten was 14th in his rookie race in 1992, sat out the next five years, and then came back to surprise everyone with a 10th-place showing last year. * The Unpredictable Old Guard: Bill Cotter from Nenana. Cotter is recognized by almost everyone as a highly knowledgeable dog man, but his finishes in the Iditarod in the past decade have drifted from as high as third to as low as 19th. * The Foreigners: Harald Tunheim from Norway, the 1999 rookie of the year who surprised everyone by running with the leaders before faltering along the coast and falling to 19th; and Hans Gatt from Atlin, British Columbia, who has been a force in mid-distance races but has yet to make a mark in Iditarod. Buser said the winner will be someone who has a game plan and sticks with it. "Certainly, at one point, you make adjustments to your race plan, but I think it's the person who stays with their own plan the longest who wins," he said. The idea, Buser said, is to get the dogs to the coast just as they reach the peak of their abilities. "That sort of feeds on itself," he said. "You get swept up in that feeling. When it happens to you, it's a great feeling, and I'm sure it's almost the same for the team. It's an undescribable high." Five mushers shared the experience in the 1990s. Four of them will share the starting line with 77 wannabes in downtown Anchorage today. Only one will get to know the euphoria of victory. * Outdoors editor Craig Medred can be reached at cmedred@adn.com
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