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2008 Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race – 25 Years and Running!

November 19, 2007
Editor and/or Contributors

WHITEHORSE, YUKON – Current Champion Lance Mackey was only 12 years old when Sonny Linder won the first Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race in 1984. This February, 25 years and as many races later, the two race Champions will explode from the 2008 Start Chute in Fairbanks, Alaska sharing both the trail and a fierce determination to finish first in Whitehorse, Yukon two weeks later.Mackey, 37, has won three Yukon Quest races – 2005, 2006 and 2007 – and last March, became the first musher in history to win both the 1,000-mile Yukon Quest and the 1,100-mile Iditarod Sled Dog Race in the same year.Several dogs on Mackey’s team also competed in both races – a combined distance equaling that of a race from Miami to New York City.Back to commemorate the historic 25th Running of the Yukon Quest is Michigan native Linder, 58, who now resides in Two Rivers, Alaska – the unofficial “epicenter” of the State’s sled dog community where middle and long-distance racing dogs outnumber humans four-to-one. In addition to Mackey and Linder, 20 mushers have signed up for this year’s race to date, including veteran Whitehorse musher and 1995 Yukon Quest Champion Frank Turner who has competed in all but one race in the organization’s twenty-five-year history. “I aim to run my own race by staying focused and having fun with my dogs,” said Turner. “I want to enjoy the 25th Yukon Quest as much as I enjoyed the first.” The historic 25th Running of the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race will begin from Fairbanks, Alaska on February 9, 2008. For more information about the 2008 Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race and the mushers signed up to date, please visit www.yukonquest.com or contact:Amanda LeslieMedia & Communications Coordinator2008 Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Racemedia@yukonquest.com or 867.334.4770