Kjetil's three out of three in top-10 makes him a profiled Iditarod musher that always will be counted among the favourites. This year it took him 9 days, 21 hours and 25 minutes to travel by dogsled 1690 km from Anchorage to Nome. The time is around ten hours behind the winner Lance Mackey and some seven hours slower than personal best from his rookie race in 2001. He arrived with 11 of the original 16 dogs in the pack.

"Mission accomplished," the Team Norway-musher comments to ”Eye on the trail”, telling that he switched to training mode at Cripple, halfway in the race. " I had several 2-years old in the pack, and after this experience they have a bright future. Team Norway looks forward to see tehm run in Iditarod 2009."

On the last legs Backen traveled along with Mitch Seavy and Paul Gebhardt. After a race of almost 10 days, less than 45 minutes divided them over the finish line.

Two of the top-10 places saw a spurt on the home stretch, the main street of Nome. Ken Anderson and Martin Buser arrived Nome sled by sled, Anderson snapping the 4th place with a few seconds, andSebastian Schnuelle threw himself in as number 10 after a shoulder to shoulder fight with Zack Steer.