Outdoors/Adventure

Yukon Quest: Hugh Neff wins with Allen Moore less than 1 minute behind

Tok musher Hugh Neff ended a career of near misses and heartbreaks before dawn on Tuesday when he ran down Allen Moore to capture the closest Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race by a single minute.

Neff crossed the finish line in Whitehorse in the pre-dawn darkness at 5:14 a.m. with his nine strongest dogs still in harness. Moore was just a tick of the clock behind with 10 dogs.

In his 12th Quest, dating back to 2000, Neff, the former runnerup who twice placed third, finally claimed the top spot. Last year, he led much of the race but had to scratch when horrific weather battered the frontrunners late in the race.

Two years earlier, a two-hour penalty for racing on a roadway cost him the title. Even so, he narrowly missed catching winner Sebastian Schnuelle in what until Tuesday was the closest Quest finish ever.

To finally win, Neff had to make up a deficit of 42 minutes leaving the final checkpoint of Braeburn. But coming from behind didn't bother him.

"The worst thing for me would be to have a headlamp behind me for 10 hours," Neff told Emily Schwing of KUAC-FM radio before leaving on the stretch run. "It would drive me nuts, and you can stress out another dog team because those dogs are gonna be looking back behind them the whole time."

Crossing the Klondike Highway about 30 miles from the finish, according to GPS tracking devices, Neff clung to a half-mile lead over Moore, the veteran middle distance musher who had never mastered distance races until taking charge of this Quest less than halfway through.

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"Last night in Carmacks I asked (Hugh), how many of these nine dogs (remaining in his team) are the same as those eight which chased me down in Iditarod last year, as they looked very familiar," former Quest champion Sebastian Schnuelle said in his Facebook blog about the race. "'All 8' was his answer, grinning from ear to ear."

In that Iditarod, won in record time by John Baker of Kotzebue, Neff was fifth, just 39 minutes ahead of Schnuelle, who announced after the race he was retiring.

Neff's team of veteran dogs knew the 1,000 mile route between Fairbanks and Whitehorse. Every one had run at least three Quests, though none was as warm as this one, which included temperatures up to 40 degrees.

Moore started with a 42-minute lead over Neff leaving the final checkpoint of Braeburn, and he knew the mushers' drive to the finish line would be tight.

"It's gonna depend on who makes a mistake," Moore told KUAC reporter Emily Schwing earlier in Braeburn. "It's gonna be really close.

"Right now I'm feeling sub-par. Hopefully, we can get four hours (rest) in this eight-hour (mandatory stop at Braeburn) and we should feel like Superman or something. The dogs also. They've gotten very little rest. So for them to get this much (rest), hopefully they'll be fired up."

Contact Mike Campbell at mcampbell(at)alaskadispatch.com

Mike Campbell

Mike Campbell was a longtime editor for Alaska Dispatch News, and before that, the Anchorage Daily News.

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