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FORT KENT – Rick Larson, a six-year veteran of mushing from Montana and a rookie at Fort Kent, won the 2007 Irving Woodlands 250-mile sled dog race Monday.
Rita Wehseler of Tofte, Minn., came across the finish line 16 minutes later for second place, just one minute and 25 seconds ahead of third-place finisher Don Hibbs of Millinocket who was seeking his fourth crown in the 15th annual Can-Am Crown International Sled Dog Race.
Hibbs was 12 minutes ahead of Normand Casavant of Val des Lacs, Quebec, who came in fourth. Last year’s champion, Matt Carstens of Whitefield, N.H., arrived in fifth place at Fort Kent 28 minutes behind Casavant.
Hibbs led the two-day race until Larson went past him just nine miles from the finish line. Wehseler went by Hibbs within a quarter mile of the finish line, becoming the highest placed woman finisher.
Eighteen other mushers were still on the trail in the race, between Maibec’s Lumber Camp near the Quebec border and the finish line. Nine mushers scratched in the competition since the start of the race Saturday morning. The top 12 finishers in the race are eligible for part of the $20,000 purse.
While the race has been slower than usual since the start, the finish Monday morning was one of the most exciting.
Hibbs, a three-time winner of the race at Fort Kent, led for a good part of the race, but his team ran out of punch as the finish line got closer.
In the final leg, a 45-mile dash to the finish from Allagash to Fort Kent, Hibbs was running with eight dogs. He left Allagash 30 minutes ahead of Larson who still had 10 of the 12 dogs he had at the start.
By the time the two mushers had reached Dickwood Lake, 20 miles from Fort Kent, Larson had made up 17 minutes. Eleven miles later, Larson passed Hibbs.
Less than half a mile from the finish line, Wehseler passed Hibbs who had slowed to a crawl.
“This is an awesome race,” Larson said at the finish line. “It is no gimme. The mushers are tough.
“I believed that if the weather stayed good we had the power to do this,” he said of winning.
“This race is more demanding than the Iditarod,” said the musher who ran the 1,000-mile race in Alaska in 2004. “These mountains, these hills, there’s nothing like this in the Iditarod.”
“I’ll be back,” he said.
Larson was 47th in the Iditarod in 2004. The six-year veteran musher started his kennel in Sand Coulee, Mont., eight years ago after being a handler for other mushers for several years.
He came to the Fort Kent race, 2,500 miles from his home, on the recommendation of a friend, Terry Adkins, a Montana musher who has run in the Fort Kent contest.
He won his first race in 2007 in California, and Fort Kent wound up his racing schedule for the year.
Hollering and cheering met Wehseler at the finish line. This was her third race at Fort Kent, and she was the first woman to ever finish the race in 2001.
“Oh my god,” she said at the finish line at the Lonesome Pine Ski Lodge. “I caught him [Hibbs] just before the ski hill.
“I knew I had to catch him before he started going down the hill into no man’s land,” she said. “I asked for the trail and he gave it.”
No man’s land is the area just before the finish line. It is an area where a musher does not have to move over to let another musher pass.
Wehseler didn’t realize how close she was to being the winner until after she took care of her dogs. Her mouth fell open inside the ski lodge when told Larson had only come through the finish line 16 minutes before she did.
She had not seen Larson on the trail.
Hibbs was visibly disappointed, and his team was dog-tired as he arrived at the finish line. His 8-year-old daughter Fredericka led the team the last 100 feet.
“It was a tough run,” the veteran musher said at the finish line. “Just too many hills and not enough dog power.
“We ran out of gas,” Hibbs said after setting the pace for the previous 100 miles.
Irving Woodlands 250-mile Race finishers
1. Rick Larson, Sand Coulee, Mont., 34 hours, 33 minutes and 2 seconds.
2. Rita Wehseler, Tofte, Minn., 34:49:25.
3. Don Hibbs, Millinocket, 34:50:50.
4. Normand Casavant, Val des Lacs, Quebec, 35:02:00.
5. Matt Carstens, Whitefield, N.H., 35:30:37.
6. Bruce Langmaid, Blackstock, Ontario, 37:04:20.
7. Martin Massicote, St. Tite, Quebec, 37:04:31.
8. Herve Belanger, Berry, Quebec, 37:32:36.
Remaining on the trail Monday were:
Nathan Schroder, Chisholm, Minn.
Amy Dugan, Shirley.
Mike Ellis, Rumney, N.H.
Mario Racine, St. Cecile, Quebec.
Kevin Malikowski, Outing, Minn.
Robert St. Onge, La Morandiere, Quebec.
Jeffrey Baril, St. Zenon, Quebec.
Larry Murphy, Fort Kent.
Sue Ellis, Rumney, N.H.
Kim Darst, Blairstown, N.J.
Christine Richardson, Canaan, N.H.
Lev Shvarts, Wichendon, Mass.
Jaye Foucher, Ashland, N.H.
Scratched mushers were:
Ward Wallin, Two Harbors, Minn.
Colleen Wallin, Two Harbors, Minn.
Tim Calhoun, Tomahawk, Wis.
Andre Longchamps, Pont-Rouge, Quebec.
Steve Collins, Maidstone, Vt.
Sylvain Robillard, St. Gabriel de Brandon, Quebec.
Bill Mattot, Manchester, N.H.
Robert Fredette, Plantagenet, Quebec.
Rachel Nissley, Sherman.
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