Demoski was arrested on suspicion of assault, reckless endangerment, reckless driving and six counts of criminal mischief.
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Race officials say a suspect has been identified by a Nulato village police officer.
Two veteran mushers in Alaska’s Iditarod told race officials on Saturday that a person driving a snowmobile tried to drive the machine into their sled teams in apparent attacks.
Alaskan mushers and their dog teams are celebrities in the north, and die-hard race fans can track their progress on Global Positioning System monitors.
“I made a mistake, shouldn’t have been driving last night”, he told the station in a video posted on its Facebook page. He said he turned himself in after waking up the following morning and realising what had happened.
Demoski, a natural-resources coordinator for the Nulato tribal council, said he believes he came out of his drunken blackout state after the collisions revved up his adrenaline. King’s dog Nash was killed on impact, King said in an interview after the crash. King told the Iditarod Insider the snowmobile narrowly missed him and his sled, but hit his dogs at high speed.
“I don’t want him to drive anything at all-not even a scooter”, Spiers said.
Mushers are pressing their dog sled teams closer to the finish line in Alaska’s famous Iditarod after authorities say a snowmobiler intentionally rammed into two top competitors, killing one dog and injuring others. A few miles out of Koyukuk, Demoski “came speeding up, hit the side of [Zirkle’s] sled and flipped two of her dogs”, troopers wrote in an affidavit.
One of his dogs – a male named Nash – was killed and several others were injured, state troopers said in a news release.
The same snowmobile approached her again 12 miles (19.31 kilometers) from Nulato but left.
“Regrettably, this incident very much alters the race of the two mushers competing for a win; however, both are going to continue on their way toward Nome”, Iditarod organizers said in a statement. Crosby, another 3-year-old male, and Banjo, a 2-year-old male, received injuries and are expected to survive. He gave others first-aid and loaded them into his sled.
“It did not seem like an accident”, King said, adding that the driver never stopped or returned to the scene.
“Mushers and snowmachiners know the key to incident-free encounters on a multiuse trail is common sense”, Hooley said. The 44-year-old race, which takes up to 10 days, is held in honor of the sled-dog teams that used to be the area’s only winter form of transportation and deliveries. But second out of the village was earlier race leader Brent Sass, who left almost an hour after Dallas Seavey.
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Zirkle rested four hours in Nulato and dropped one dog before heading back onto the Yukon River with 14 dogs in harness. King reached Nulato at 3:25 a.m.in fifth place. His father, former champion Mitch Seavey, was in fourth place.
