Sports

It starts as people line up for the food at the 2020 Kuskokwim 300 Mushers Banquet. They talk about sled dog racing, and share little tricks and refinements they might use to make the next race better.  A couple of mushers were talking about lining a sled runner with pink plastic.

Lance Mackey took the red lantern in the Kuskokwim 300 sled dog race on Sunday, Jan. 19. The former Iditarod champion was the last to cross the finish line in Bethel at 10:33 p.m., over six hours after he left Tuluksak. 

Mackey knew he was in for some trouble before the race began. It started just after he got to town on Monday before the race.

“On Tuesday, three of my dogs were kind of sneezing,” he said. “Turned into a little bit of a cough. Turned into not eating for a couple of days before the start of the race.”

With the sky still dark at 8:46 a.m. on Sunday, Jan. 19, Bethel’s Pete Kaiser racked up his fifth victory in the Kuskokwim 300, mushing’s marquee mid-distance race.

Greg Larson is the 2020 Akiak Dash champion. The Napaskiak musher earned his third Akiak Dash title when his team cruised into Bethel at 7:25 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 18. He previously won in 2004 and 2016.

There’s a new champion in this year’s Bogus Creek 150 sled dog race. Bethel musher Matt Scott edged out a narrow win on Saturday morning in a small but competitive field that included racers from some of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta’s mushing dynasties.