Since when does $10,000 buy a home?

The civic leaders in Wasilla have a pretty limp hold on the title “Home of the Iditarod.”

Sure the race headquarters are on the right side of the Knik-Goose Bay Road to keep the office in town, but other than that, Willow should now rightly claim to be home of the race.

It’s been well-established the race is not likely to ever start in Wasilla again. The trail system is overrun by development. The town has grown too fast and too big to host the event without scaring the horses, let alone the dogs.

As it is now, Anchorage has more claim to be home of the Iditarod than Wasilla. At least the mushers make a cameo appearance there.

All the mushers do in Wasilla is stop for gas, maybe, and get one last greasy burger and fries before they hit the trail with hardtack in the sled bag.

Even Nome isn’t so bold as to claim it’s the home of the Iditarod. It rightfully says it’s home to the end of the race. See, there’s a start to a race and a finish to the race. Then there all the points in between. Nowhere in that wandering line do you see Wasilla mentioned. It’s not even a dot on the map.

Skwentna has more claim to the name than Wasilla.

Although Wasilla does donate a significant amount of money to the race — $10,000, and $5,000 more to the Junior Iditarod that also starts elsewhere. And the lease for the headquarters is free. That’s a sweet deal for events that don’t even take place anywhere near town. But it must be OK with the Wasilla taxpayers or there would’ve been an uproar by now.

Granted, Wasilla once was the official restart location and had plenty of reason to brag about that, but that hasn’t been the case in quite some time. So the town leaders should graciously let go of their hollow boosterism. Turn it over to Willow. Because when tourists pull up in their giant buses this summer and want to see the start of the race — the real start, not that sham in Anchorage — they will be directed to Willow or they will be lied to by somebody in Wasilla.

And Wasilla really can’t suffer that image. No matter how much they pay for the naming rights.