Egil with the ONAC trophy, his name will now be on there for 12 times!

What an amazing season we have had 2012!
Egil won his 12th ONAC – Open North American Championship! This is his 5th victory in a row, so a new record, first musher ever to accomplish this.
Egil: “A dozen ONAC victories! I can’t believe it... No 12 in the box and I’m glad it is over.” One day after Egil celebrated his 42nd birthday, he won his 12th ONAC. What a great birthday gift!
For ONAC Egil had a real good run the first day, not so fast day two but with a real strong run the third day he secured his 12th ONAC victory even though he had to struggle with a sore back. Maybe it’s all the snow shoveling this winter that finally took its toll…
But looking back at our racing season; Egil started out winning his 7th ExxonMobil Open championship at the Tozier Track in Anchorage. After placing forth after day one he had an almost perfect run day two and could secure the first place finish. Everything looked so good the week before Rondy. The dogs felt stronger then we had ever seen them. What a team… but things in this sport can change within hours and so it did. Wednesday morning before the race and we could hear dogs coughing… Oh no… even though we had vaccinated for kennel cough they must have got it! Turned out it was a new strain of the virus that obviously the vaccine did not cover. So our hopes for three days of fast racing pretty quickly changed. But still, Egil managed to get the fastest daytime on Sunday, with a team of only 9 dogs. Mali and Casper was just awesome in lead. After all a good Rondy for us, Egil finished third overall. Congratulations to the new champion, Ken Chezik from Michigan. And to rookie Kevin Cook, Canada who finished second.
Our last race for the season, as it’s been for 14 years now, Tok Race of Champions. This is a race that Egil won 12 times. But this year he tried real hard for yet another 1st, but with two dogs injured and only 12 dogs in the team he finished as a strong second. Ken Chezik had the weekend’s strongest team and won his first Open class at Tok.
“My run was good and clean but not enough to put a dent in Ken’s lead from the first day. Email and Mali ran great in lead and kept the pace up and we stayed in front of Arleigh Reynolds who finished in third place.”
We also had a season with record amounts of snow so even if the sun is shining on us now; there is still 2 feet (60 cm.) of hard packed snow in the dogyard, and more out in the woods… I wonder when I will be able to start digging in my garden… Well, miracles can happen and I am optimistic, in my greenhouse I now have small starters of tomato, kale, parsley and an abundance of flower plants now germinating…
Thanks to our fabulous dog team that impressed us this season; Casper, Mali, Email, Lola, Cookie, Sally, Storm, Maxi, Maja, Kip, Mister, Mickey, Pete, Racy, Rossi, Ripley, Hemi, Quartz and Pello. Special thanks to our sponsors; DrTim’s Momentum Dog Food, Bewe Sleds, Dragrat harnesses, 4S Animal Care, Bio Real Sweden, Valley Chiropractic Clinic and Big Lake Vet Hospital.
Tonight I prepared a new dish; chicken in lemon-honey flavored sauce served with haricots verts… delicious. Dipping bread in the sauce was just a perfect finale today.
Bon appetite!
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