McGRATH - A big, bearish, bearded man in pain, Shane Goosen sat on the front of his broken down dogsled on Friday with tears flowing down his dirty and trail-weary face. His hands swollen, his nose scabbed, his right knee and ankle badly twisted, he was on the verge of scratching from Iditarod 2000. "I have never, ever in my life quit at anything," the Wasilla dog breeder and trainer said as he stared off vacantly. The scene was out of an Alaska of a different era. The black-and-white wheel dogs resting on straw in front of Goosen's sled looked like cousins of the dogs that pulled Scotty Allan and Iron Man Johnson to victories in Alaska dog races at the turn of the last century. Goosen looked like he belonged back there, too. The hood of his battered brown parka pulled up around his weathered face, his scraggly beard sticking out, he could have just stepped out of a hundred-year-old photo of Alaska dog mushers. His roots in sled-dog sports don't go back quite that far, but he has been at this a long time. He started running dogs 27 years ago. Some of his early training came as a handler for Roland "Doc" Lombard, famous for his battles against the legendary George Attla on the streets of Anchorage in the World Championship Sled Dog Race. Goosen went on to run his own share of sprint races. He was never all that good, but some of his dogs were first-rate. In 1987, when Dick Mackey and Rick Swenson battled it out on Nome's Front Street in the Iditarod's only photo finish, Goosen's lead dogs were in front, he said. Mackey had bought one. Swenson had bought another. Over the years, Goosen has sold a lot of good dogs to a lot of good mushers. Montanan Doug Swingley's Elmer, winner of the "Lolly Medley Memorial Golden Harness Award" for the top dog in last year's Iditarod, has direct links to Goosen's kennel. So, when Goosen decided to get into the Iditarod, it was reasonable for him to expect to do well. His 45th place finish as a rookie last year was written off as a learning experience. Goosen got to know the trail, gained some knowledge of how the top mushers did things and started planning to launch a serious challenge this year. "I honestly, in my mind, believed I could beat these guys," he said. "It's a dog race. I had a great dog team. If I'd just stayed on a nice little schedule, it's very possible." Problems, however, arose early. With his dogs laboring in the heat on the first couple days of the race, Goosen took the race's one, required 24-hour rest on the south side of the Alaska Range early on, the first musher to take it. By the time he got back on the trail, most racers were far ahead, but he began reeling them in. He breezed through the Rainy Pass and Rohn checkpoints as the front-runners were nearing their 24-hour stops at McGrath, Takotna, Ophir and Cripple. "We were doing good," Goosen said. Then came a collision with a tree on the edge of Farewell Lakes on Wednesday night. Goosen hit the tree almost straight on. The collision shattered the brush bow on his sled and broke the metal cross bars that stabilize the rear stanchions. Pitched over the handlebar by the nearly instantaneous stop, he cartwheeled into the tree. His right knee and ankle took the brunt of the impact. From the pain, he thought sure he'd broken his leg. "I left my name tattooed on that tree," he said. He spent the next 11 1/2 hours trying to learn to ride a dog sled with one leg across the bumpy Farewell Burn. "I'd go a little ways and have to stop, go a little ways and have to stop," he said. "Sometimes I was just laying on the sled (angry at what had happened)." He knew his dream of a top Iditarod finish was dead. Now it was just a question of whether he could go on. He made it to McGrath on Friday, but he was a pitiful sight dragging his stiff and swollen bad leg around the checkpoint. "It hurts just to walk now," he said. "I feel like I let people down. A lot of people helped me out this year. "It's a damn nice feeling to know you've got friends and neighbors who will be there, but I feel like I let them down." He took a pull on a cigarette and looked ahead to the dogs resting on straw in front of the broken sled. "I feel like I let those guys down, too," he said. "Foolish pride will cause a lot of things. I think my psyche is more damaged than my leg. "It'll really humble you." * Outdoors editor Craig Medred can be reached at cmedred@adn.com when the race is over
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