Dick Wilmarth Dick Wilmarth Dick Wilmarth (c.1942 – March 21, 2018) was a miner and trapper from Red Devil, Alaska who won the inaugural Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in 1973 with lead dog "Hotfoot". In a 2001 interview with the Anchorage Daily News, Wilmarth said he saw the 1973 Iditarod as not really a sled dog race but more of a time to enjoy the Alaska wilderness with friends. He assembled a 12-dog team just a few months before the race, obtaining dogs from Native villages on the Kuskokwim River. Thirty-five dog teams started the 1973 race and twenty-two finished. Competing
Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race small $1,000 purse only drew in 12 mushers. Redington along with two school teachers, Gleo Huyck and Tom Johnson, was the impetus behind extending the race more than along the historic route to Nome. The three co-founders of the race started in October 1972 to plan the now famous race. A major fundraising campaign which raised a purse of $51,000 was also started at the same time. This race was the first true Iditarod Race and was held in 1973, and attracted a field of 34 mushers, 22 of whom completed the race. Dorothy Page had nothing to do with