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Photo by Sam Harrel

Whitehorse, Yukon — Not even a strong challenge from his next-door neighbor and a costly wrong turn could keep Lance Mackey out of the record books.

Mackey, of Fairbanks, and his indomitable band of huskies arrived to hundreds of cheering spectators at 1:23 a.m. Yukon time today to claim his fourth consecutive Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race by 15 minutes over Ken Anderson.

“I think my head’s on backwards. I’ve been lookin’ over my shoulder for about a hundred miles,” Mackey said.

Mackey’s final time was 10 days, 12 hours and 14 minutes.

Mackey started the final day with a 19-minute advantage over Anderson, leaving Braeburn Lodge at 1:53 p.m. after a mandatory eight-hour layover.

In the end, Mackey’s slightly faster speed made the difference. Throughout the 1,000-mile race, Mackey was gaining about 15 minutes every 50 miles, a margin that Anderson offset by running a little longer and resting slightly less. At Braeburn, he no longer had that option, but he almost hunted Mackey down.

Getting splits from spectators, Anderson said he was still 15 minutes behind at the Takhini River but called up his dogs and shaved the deficit to four minutes before fading at the end.

“I could sense you,” Mackey told Anderson as he congratulated him. “I couldn’t see you, but I knew you were there somewhere.”

Mackey finished with 11 dogs, more than anyone in the 24-musher field.

“They’re all standouts,” he said.

Despite having former Golden Harness winners Larry, Hobo and Lippy on the team, he’ll nominate Hansom and Rev this time.

“Every time I had a doubt or a question, I grabbed one of those two,” he said.

Mackey, who won $35,000, has little time to savor the victory. He’s signed up for the Iditarod as well as the historic All Alaska Sweepstakes.

“Not to sound greedy, but I’d really love to win all three,” he said.

Mackey’s wife, Tonya, and Anderson’s wife, Gwen Holdmann, watched together in the finish chute.

Anderson, a Quest rookie, was not disappointed in being runner-up.

“This is probably the best race I’ve ever had, coming in second to a team like Lance’s. He’s the team to beat right now, so yeah, it’s exciting,” Anderson said.

Anderson said he’ll try the Quest again.

“I’d like to do it again,” he said. “I really enjoyed this race.”

The race was among the closest in the 25-year history of the event.

The closest finish is the five minutes Charlie Boulding was faster than Bruce Lee in 1991. Several other races were decided by less than 20 minutes.

The finish was the first in Whitehorse since 2004. Normally the race finishes there every even year, but it was re-routed back to Dawson City in 2006 because of low snow in the Whitehorse area.

The win for Mackey was anything but easy. He started out content to led Dan Kaduce lead for a few days, then surged ahead on the Yukon River.

By Eagle it was a two-man race between Mackey, a 37-year-old neck cancer survivor who moved from Kasilof to Fairbanks last year, and Anderson, an 35-year-old Iditarod veteran making his first foray in what is billed as the world’s toughest sled dog race. Anderson was inspired to enter in part because Mackey had proven that it was possible to excel in both races. Mackey became the first to win the Quest and Iditarod back-to-back last year.

Mackey, like most mushers, got a bit banged up on nasty jumble ice on the Yukon River, though he didn’t suffer the casualties in dropped dogs that so many teams did.

Still, Mackey led Anderson — who boldly marched to Dawson with a 100-mile run despite soft snow — by just six minutes at the midway point.

Then Mackey made a blunder that likely would have cost him the race had it come a few days later. Running in the dark with his headlamp off, he took a wrong turn on King Solomon’s Dome that he said cost him about four hours. Mackey erased the deficit quickly by speeding up and cutting rest, but said the gaffe affected him for days.

Late in the race, Mackey withstood a 16-hour, 115-mile run of Anderson’s, then took a razor-thin lead into the final checkpoint of Braeburn and held on to the finish.

Previously, Hans Gatt had been the only three-time winner, taking the 2002-04 titles.

But Mackey, in a race Gatt did not contest, began his remarkable string the next year, beating William Kleedehn by eight minutes. Similar to Tuesday, he led Kleedehn at the final checkpoint that year (Angel Creek) by 11 minutes and held him off all the way to the finish line.

Then in 2006, Mackey won by 1 hour, 12 minutes over Gatt despite taking a wrong turn on the last day heading back to Dawson City.

Last year was Mackey’s easiest win, by 5:42 over Gatt in a record-setting time of 10 days, 3 hours and 37 minutes.