Eureka-based musher Brent Sass won the 2022 Copper Basin 300 sled dog race on Monday afternoon, racing across the finish line in Glennallen with his 10-dog team. It’s his first Copper Basin victory.
Sass, who had placed second in the 300-mile Copper Basin in both 2020 and 2019, was followed across the finish line by Joar Leifseth Ulsom, Matt Hall and Paige Drobny.
Nineteen mushers started the Copper Basin race Saturday in Glennallen. Six had dropped out as of Tuesday morning, with two teams still racing.
This year’s Copper Basin featured deeply cold weather with reports of temperatures dropping to negative 40 and lower.
By early Tuesday, Sass posted on his kennel’s Facebook page that his dogs were “massaged, fed and headed to bed Copper Basin 300 Sled Dog Race Champions!”
Dan Bross is a reporter at KUAC in Fairbanks.
