Christian Taveau passes by the Mushers Hall on his way to the 10-dog crown. Photo by Dave Partee/SledDogStudio.com
Another beautiful day for racing produced another stellar set of results as the Alaska Dog Mushers Association wrapped up the first weekend of championship racing on a sun-splashed Sunday afternoon at the Jeff Studdert Racegrounds.
After two days of racing on the ADMA trail system, Becky Voris (skjoring), Jennifer Probert (six-dog mushing), and Christian Taveau (10-dog mushing) emerged as the winners of the Gold Run.
Probert and Taveau were wire-to-wire winners of their respective classes, while Voris made her first-day lead stand up to claim the skijoring crown.
Taveau was master of the 10-dog class, finishing about 26 seconds ahead of Amanda Byrd on Sunday and more than a minute ahead of Byrd in the overall standings.
Taveau’s Sunday run of 38 minutes, 11.3 seconds on the 12.1-mile trail gave him a two-day time of 1:15:08.3 for 24.2 miles of racing.
Byrd started Sunday’s heat in third place, but moved up to second with a strong run of 38:37.0. That gave her a two-day time of 1:16:31.1, a solid 17 seconds ahead of third-place finisher Probert, who finished two days on the course in 1:16:48.0.
Trish Seibold, who began the day in second place, finished fourth overall in 1:17:32.3. Rob Downey rounded out the top five in fifth place at 1:17:47.1.
Probert padded her lead in the six-dog class by adding another seven seconds to her lead over Ami Gjestson on Sunday.
Probert, who made a strong showing at the IFSS World Championships earlier this season in Quebec, covered Sunday’s 7.7-mile trail in 24:14.9, for a two-day total of 48:08.0.
Gjestson notched a run of 24:21.2 on Sunday and finished the two days of racing in 48:40.2.
Angie Fitch captured third place in a field of eight teams with a two-day time of 49:42.6.
Rebecca Knight posted the fastest skijoring time of the day on Sunday, but it wasn’t enough to overtake Voris for the overall championship. Knight completed Sunday’s 5.9-mile course in 19:47.9, while Voris checked in at 19:52.1 and Greg Jurek was just another two seconds back.
However, Voris won Saturday’s first heat by almost 30 seconds to give her a comfortable margin of victory in the overall standings. She had a two-day time of 39:29.0, while Knight came in a 39:54.3. Jurek’s run on Sunday enabled him to move from fifth to third place with an overall time of 40:13.9.
The top five finishers were within 68 seconds of the winner.
– Story originally printed in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner