As the time ticked by, speculation was rampant about what might have happened to the second-year Quest musher who’d run an aggressive race to put him in contention for third place.
Many suspected an epic blowup, likely brought on by a 16-hour run through the hills leaving Dawson, his second trip of that length in the previous 72 hours.
Fueling the fire was an unofficial report from the trail that Sass was seen walking in front of his dog team, a likely indication that they had quit on him.
Add the statistic that the five teams who reached Stepping Stone from Scroggie Creek averaged less than 12 hours for the 70-mile trip, and the Sass camp was beyond concerned because the Fairbanks musher had been AWOL 2 1/2 times that long.
But Brent Sass’ nine-dog team wasn’t shut down — he was. Sass had food poisoning.
The trouble began at one of the high points of the race so far for Sass. High on adrenaline after the huge push from Dawson to just past Scroggie Creek, he felt his stomach rumbling as race leaders Ken Anderson and Lance Mackey snagged the lead back.
Sass, 27, gave his team a well-deserved 11-hour rest and got moving again Sunday evening. He only made it 30 miles.
“Eventually, it just got to the point where I couldn’t even go anymore,” said Sass, a former UAF Nordic skier who was suddenly unable to help the team. “I stopped. I was sick for 10 hours.”
If there was a silver lining, his team — led by a dog named Silver — got quality rest as Sass worked the bug out of his system.
The low point came Sunday night when Sass helplessly heard two mushers pass by to bump him back to seventh place.
“I was laying there half-awake in my sleeping bag after I had stopped throwing up and everything else,” Sass said from Pelly Crossing with his usual enthusiasm. “I heard both Kelley (Griffin) and Hugh Neff go by and I thought ‘Oh, now it’s just a fight for the finish (line),’”
Monday dawned a new day, though.
“I got up (Monday) morning and made the 70-mile run into (Pelly) and it was great,” Sass said.
He also was pleasantly surprised to learn that he barely trailed Michelle Phillips and David Dalton, whom he’s been battling for third place.
“I just know that I came in here an hour and a half (behind them) with these guys thinking I was 5 or 6 hours behind,” he said.
Before leaving Monday night, a reinvigorated Sass and his dogs both fueled up for the final 250 miles of trail, and the “drama magnet” now has a few more Quest stories to go along with those of years past.
On his way to winning the Quest 300 two years ago, Sass went down the wrong side of Eagle Summit in the whiteout storm that caused six mushers to be rescued — and for good measure, he helped bring a musher to safety who’d lost his team.
Then last year, he took 15th in a Quest filled with adventure and tragedy — first he chased down Yuka Honda’s loose dog team, then helped her cope with a dog of hers that had died. Then eight days later, after Silver had already gone down with an injury, his dog Melville died near Slaven’s Roadhouse and was later found to have ingested fabric before the race that caused his death.
The tales from these last two days have a happier ending, no matter how the race shakes out.
The first was the thrill of passing a sleeping Mackey and Anderson to take the lead in the Quest, even though he pulled over within a couple miles and knew the lead would be immediately erased. But having left Dawson 11 hours after that pair, Sass figured he wouldn’t see them again until the finish line.
“I was sitting at my camp spot just smiling and waiting,” Sass said. “I timed it. Fifteen minutes. They must have just gotten up and bootied and took off.”
The second story explains why Sass was seen walking at the front of his team.
“I always stop when I see a headlight coming because my team has a tendency of hogging the whole trail and it’s hard for teams to get by,” he said. “So I just stop and I walk to the front and drag them out of the way, so there’s your rumor.”
And then he threw in a line of good-natured bravado.
“My dogs are far from dying,” he said. “They’re hard to kill, and I’m even harder to kill.”
Sass didn’t explain the situation to Dalton and Phillips, the mushers who happen to be his primary competition.
“I didn’t say much ... because I was holding back the puke, basically,” Sass said.
