After a tight chase between two experienced mushers on Sunday morning, Hugh Neff won the annual Kobuk 440 sled dog race, outrunning Richie Diehl by just 2 minutes.
Neff, who has more than a dozen Yukon Quests and Iditarods under his belt, has been a prominent leader throughout this year’s Kobuk 440 race, which started Thursday and ran from Kotzebue to Kobuk and back.
“You run to the front of the pack and say, ‘This is my trail. Who’s gonna beat me?’” Neff said about his strategy. “I used to race with Lance Mackey and I’ve always believed in his philosophy.”
Crossing challenging Northwest Alaska terrain, Neff arrived at the checkpoint in Ambler first and left it about 1.5 hours earlier than Diehl. However, coming up to the end of the race, Diehl started gaining on Neff.
“I got to the top of the last hill here, before you drop down to Kotzebue and I saw him down on the ice,” Diehl said. “We tried to catch him but we never actually caught up to him.”
