Iron Doggers done

BIG LAKE -- The team of Mark Carr and Dusty VanMeter rolled accross Big Lake and arrived at the Big Lake Lodge just before 11 a.m. Saturday to win the 20th annual Tesoro Iron Dog snowmachine race.

The Kenai Peninsula riders completed nearly 2,000 miles of trail in 39 hours, 3 minutes.

Wasilla's Todd Palin and Scott Davis of Soldotna crossed the finish time 38 minutes later, at 11:29 a.m., to take second.

Carr and VanMeter earned $26,000 of the $90,000 purse by winning the title.

The remainder of the pot was split up among the next nine finishers.

After cancelling the 2003 race, due to lack of snow, Iron Dog organizers had to tweak the route of the 2004 run. For the first time in the history of the race, the trail started in Fairbanks. Competitors started on the Chena River in Fairbanks and took a northern route to Nome passing through such checkpoints as Manley, Galena, Ruby and White Mountain. From Nome, participants went east back to Ruby and south through checkpoints such as McGrath and Skwentna.

Palin and Davis were the first team to leave Nome, holding a six minute lead over Palmer's Tyler Akelstad and his partner Marc McKenna.

Carr and VanMeter used a strong effort during the second half of the race to overtake the lead of Palin and Davis and arrive in Big Lake with a comfortable lead.

Twelve of the 25 teams entered in the race,

finished.

Akelstad and McKenna scratched at Ruby.