Editor’s note: Richland Source is posting daily updates on Mansfield native Matthew Failor’s efforts at the 2024 Iditarod Sled Dog Race, which began March 3. Updates post daily at 8 a.m. and may be updated during the day.
(UPDATE: Dallas Seavey won his record sixth Iditarod championship on Tuesday, crossing the finish line in Nome at 5:16 p.m. ADT.)
(UPDATE: Matthew Failor arrived in Elim on Tuesday at 11:34 a.m. ADT after a trip of six hours and 22 minutes. After making the decision to rest his team following the 48-mile trek, Failor has traveled 852 miles and has 123 miles remaining.)
(UPDATE: Matthew Failor left Koyuk on Tuesday at 5:12 a.m. ADT after a rest of five hours and 46 minutes. His team is now on its way to Elim, a trip of 48 miles.)
ON THE IDITAROD TRAIL, Alaska — Matthew Failor is still delivering pizza on the Iditarod trail — and still remembering Allie Marie.
The Mansfield native mushed into Shaktoolik on Monday around lunchtime.
The 42-year-old St. Peter’s High School graduate stopped to check in with race officials — and then delivered to them a pizza he had brought with him from the Unalakleet checkpoint, about three-quarters of the way through the nearly 1,000-mile race.
And somewhere in heaven, Allie Marie smiled at her favorite sled dog racer.
Failor continued a tradition that began in 2013 when Allie Marie arranged for a hot pizza to be waiting for him from the Peace on Earth pizza shop/restaurant in the village of 882 people that serves as the gateway to the Bering Sea for mushers every year.
The pizzas come with well wishes from family and friends following their favorite mushers on the trail.
Thanks to the internet, the Florida woman became a fan of Failor after his first Iditarod race in 2012 when he finished 47th.
She contacted him in October that year to let him know of her pizza plan in the 2013 race. Allie Marie reminded him a week before the race of her plan.
Failor said he thought about that pizza along the trail in 2013, which is exactly what Allie Marie wanted him to do.
“I did want the thought of hot pizza to be warming him waaay before he got there!” she said at the time.
In the 2013 race, Failor opted not to stop for a rest in Unalakleet, which came on his birthday. But the pizza was delivered and was devoured by hungry mushers as a welcome treat in the cold and windy coastal village.
Allie Marie passed away in October 2013. But her friends around the country, and the world, have kept the pizza tradition alive.
“Allie Marie bought me pizza last year. She said she’d watched me on the tracker and I was her favorite racer. It was such a nice gesture from Florida, 5,000 miles away,” Failor said in 2014.
Nicole Brecht Sopkin, who lived in Texas at the time, was the first to pick up the pizza-ordering torch after seeing it on the internet.
Monica Fisher, a Minnesota resident, said Monday night her friend Allie Marie wanted to keep it going.
“Allie was definitely our lead dog! And she brought and held us together — as diverse as we were: old, young, families, solos, and from around the world.
“Anja and Ranier from Europe, Jennifer and Lorraine in Florida, Pat in New Orleans, Karen has settled in Seattle, not far from Roxie. Jane, Sasha, Deb (lost to cancer last year). I am firmly in the Midwest, Staci’s in Ohio. We would never have come together without Allie,” Fisher said.
Davida Hanson, along with her husband Bret Hanson, own the local pizza shop of Peace on Earth in Unalakleet. She told Iditarod.com Insider earlier this week Failor gets more pizzas than any other musher.
“Last year, Matt Failor had probably 10 or 12 large pizza orders. He just had fans everywhere. So we take the orders and we do the orders knowing that these mushers have 12 large pizzas waiting at the checkpoint.
“It’s nice because the checkpoint gets a lot of local people up there. So they share, and everybody, of course, the whole town.
“But Matt took his pizza to the next checkpoint (40 miles away in Shaktoolik). I think that’s great! By the time the first runners have gone through and we have 25 or 30 pizzas waiting at the checkpoint, everybody is just pizza’d out here. (Matt) had a great idea,” she said.
According to Iditarod.com Insider, the pizza idea to benefit Failor was in full steam the year after Allie Marie died, according to a story it published during the 2014 race.
“There was pizza. Five pizzas had been delivered to the checkpoint for Matt! Five Peace on Earth pizzas would feed 20 very hungry friends. Matt was gone and there were the pizzas. Happy Birthday Matt was written on one of the boxes.
We took pictures to show Matt in Nome and then the volunteers and mushers in the checkpoint celebrated Matt’s birthday. There was also a phone number on a box so one of the (communications) people called the number to let them know the pizzas had arrived, that Matt had gone on through but they were being devoured in his absence.
The story that came back from that phone call connected the pizza delivered last year with the pizza delivered this year. The fan that had sent the pizza in 2013 had since passed away from complications of diabetes. Friends or hers decided to pick up on the idea and send pizzas this year.
They intend to make it a tradition to honor their departed friend and make Failor’s stop in Unalakleet special. There were at least three hungry mushers in the checkpoint, Mike Williams Jr., Paul Gebhardt and Nic Petit that really appreciated being a part of the new Failor Pizza Tradition.“
And now a racing update:
As of 7 a.m. EDT, Failor was taking a rest break with his team of 12 dogs in Koyuk, 804 miles into the race. He was in 11th place with 171 miles left to the finish line in Nome during his 12th Iditarod race.
Failor left Unalakleet on Monday at 7:31 a.m. ADT and traveled the 40 miles to Shaktoolik in five hours and 27 minutes, arriving at 12:58 p.m.
He gave his 17th-Dog team from his Alaskan Husky Adventures a four-hour, 35-minute rest period before heading back out onto the trail at 5:33 p.m. for Koyuk.
Failor made the 50-mile trip to Koyuk in five hours and 46 minutes, pulling in at 11:19 p.m. after a journey over the windswept, frozen water of the Norton Bay.
He was two hours behind current 10th-place musher Amanda Otto, who got to Koyuk at 7:17 p.m. and left just after midnight after a stop of four hours and 50 minutes.
The village of Koyuk has a population of 258. According to Iditarod.com Insider, “Once this checkpoint is reached, the mushers can breathe a sigh of relief as almost all of the rest of the trail is at least over land.”
When Failor leaves Koyuk, his team will travel to Elim (48 miles), White Mountain (46 miles), Safety (55 miles) and then to the finish line in Nome (22 miles).
Five-time champion Dallas Seavey continues to lead the race. He was resting his team at the White Mountain checkpoint on Tuesday morning.
Musher Matt Hall was second into White Mountain. Jessie Holmes, Travis Beals and Jeff Deeter rounded out the Top 5 as of Tuesday morning.
There have been six scratches during the race and 32 teams still on the trail Tuesday morning.
Long-time Iditarod musher scratches in Unalakleet
Veteran Iditarod musher Aaron Burmeister of Nome/Nenana, Alaska, scratched from the race Monday at 11 a.m. at the Unalakleet checkpoint.
Burmeister’s reasoning for scratching is “to help promote the mental wellness and health of my team in the future.”
Burmeister had 11 dogs in harness when he arrived in Unalakleet, all in good health, according to race officials. He and his team traveled 714 miles together.
He told Iditarod.com Insider his team was “flat.”
“The team’s healthy. They’re eating, they’re drinking. They’ve been eating and drinking and very healthy the entire race. (But) they’ve been flat. I’ve tried every trick in the book to snap them out of it. Everybody’s working, everybody’s pulling, but there’s nothing on the line and they’re not having fun.
“And this team has been in the top five multiple times. They’re a phenomenal dog team. Their a bunch of fireballs, but there’s no animation, there’s no barking. We’ve been getting down the trail and, and we got here to Unalakleet, but something’s missing. We didn’t see it all season in training. They were on fire. They blew up. We (were good) all the way up until the race started and they went flat.
“At this point, after the run coming from Kaltag, I put some things together in my mind and was able to see some things that told me that it’s not gonna be positive (to try to finish the race),” Burmeister said.
