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Montanan Doug Swingley could make this 28th Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race a run for the ages. His third victory would put him among an elite group of four mushers who have won at least three times. He also has a chance of running the first Iditarod in under nine days. On Sunday night he was 2 hours, 40 minutes ahead of the pace he set in 1995, when he established the race record of 9 days, 2 hours, 42 minutes. If Swingley reaches Nome in exactly nine days, he'll be on Front Street at 10 a.m. Tuesday. Some comparisons between Swingley's record run and this race: * Five years ago, Swingley reached Shaktoolik, 171 miles from Nome, at 4:57 p.m. Sunday. * This year he pulled in at 2:17 p.m., an improvement of 2 hours, 40 minutes. * Five years ago, Martin Buser of Big Lake was his closest challenger, four hours behind into Shaktoolik. That gap would grow to 6 hours, 5 minutes by the finish line. * This year, Paul Gebhardt was the second musher into Shaktoolik, nearly six hours behind Swingley. * Five years ago, the weather turned frigid as the race ended, reaching 20 below in Nome. * This year should be much milder, with temperatures in the teens and 20s projected. * Five years ago, Swingley had 10 dogs in harness by the time he reached Shaktoolik. * This year he pulled in behind 12 dogs. "I'm not worried about anything," Swingley said when asked how his race was going. "I just like being by myself where I'm not affected by anybody else." Clearly that has become his accustomed position. But five years ago, in the aftermath of his record victory, Swingley was talking about even more mind-boggling times. "If I had 15 more dogs like (lead dog) Elmer, this race would have been over in 7 days," he said afterward. Swingley talked about a dog team that could move at 15 mph for the 1,100 miles between Wasilla and Nome - several miles per hour faster than most teams can manage. He said Elmer was able to maintain such speed. "In the old days," said Martin Buser of Big Lake, "we used to drool over a 10 mph average. (Now) we don't really know where the limit is." And perhaps the record will continue to fall as records tend to do in all sports. If Swingley breaks the Iditarod record Tuesday, it will mark the fifth time in the past nine years that the record has fallen but the first time since Swingley's record-setting victory in 1995. The records: * In 1992, Martin Buser of Big Lake lowered Susan Butcher's record by a whopping 6 hours with a run of 10:19:17. * The next year, Jeff King of Denali Park took more than three hours off that mark with his 10:15:38 time. * In 1994, Buser reclaimed the record, slicing more than two hours off King's time. * In 1995, Swingley's time went into the books as 9 days, 2 hours, 42 minutes - more than 36 hours faster than Buser's record. On paper, Swingley's time that year was almost a day and a half better than the record Buser established the previous year. In reality, though, it was more like 10 hours faster. Until 1995, the race clock started ticking in Anchorage, where the race kicks off ceremonially before the restart a day later in Wasilla. Beginning in 1995, the clock started at the restart about 24 hours later. Since 1995, a champion has never taken more than 10 days to reach Nome. Money paid to 30th place This year, the Iditarod Trail Committee plans to hand out a record purse of more than $525,000 divided among the top 30 finishers - not just the top 20, as in years past. The prize for finishing 21st will be $8,000. In recent years, only the top 20 finishers took home decent cash (though most years all finishers got $1,049) and the financial pain of just missing the top 20 was severe. In 1999, the difference between finishing 20th and 21st was $8,455. Though the top 30 mushers will win money, the amount drops off fast: $3,500 for 25th, $1,250 for 30th. "Paying the top 30 is nothing but fantastic," said musher Jerry Austin, a member of the Iditarod Hall of Fame who has competed in 18 Iditarods and knows the heartache of finishing just out of the money. Between 1989 and his last race in 1996, Austin had one 21st-place finish, two 22nds, one 23rd and one 24th. If this year's prize-money system had been in effect during those races, Austin would be $32,000 richer. 10 mushers on scratch list The list of mushers who have scratched or withdrawn grew to 10 Sunday as Pennsylvania farmer Nelson Shughart and Rich Bosela of Eagle River pulled out in McGrath. Shughart, mushing a team of Siberian huskies, was moving very slowly and walked into McGrath beside his sled. Bosela, who finished 41st in the 1991 Iditarod, was thrown off course when his dogs bolted after some of the buffalo that roam the Farewell Burn, an open stretch between Rohn and Nikolai. As a result, Bosela camped on the Burn and spent more than 24 hours there. Most mushers make the 80-mile crossing in less than 10 hours. Bill Bass, Shane Goosen, Mike Murphy, David Straub, Harry Caldwell and Ted English have also scratched and Neen Brown was withdrawn, leaving 71 mushers on the trail to Nome. Musings on Swingley's team Joe Runyan, the 1989 Iditarod champion who is following the race for the outdoor gear company Cabela's (www.cabelasiditarod.com) has a theory about race leader Doug Swingley's success: "Canines are an interesting pack animal that recognizes the leader. It's certainly not a unique theory, but I have always felt that the emotion or the instinct that motivates musher and team is a deep-seated predatory predilection for hunting. Everything is a hunt, an investigative look around the next bend for prey. I have always felt a well-managed dog team is like a contented and well-organized wolf pack: on the move, on the hunt. At the head of this pack is the musher. "The team is easily persuaded by subtle nuances from the musher. The emotions of the musher communicates to the team. It sets the attitude. We are triumphant and strong, or we are whipped and weak. Doug manages to act the role of the victor, whether it is true or not, and sets up the personality of the team. And I believe he has taken a team of superlative athletes, convinced them of their invulnerability and pulled far ahead of the pack."
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