FAIRBANKS — All but five of the 51 teams entered in the 2011 Copper Basin 300 Sled Dog Race reached the first checkpoint as of 10:30 p.m. Saturday.

Most of the teams still on the trail started near the back of the pack in the 300-mile race that this year started at Paxson Lodge, follows a trail through Glennallen and returns to Paxson Lodge.

The 51 mushers are competing for a purse of $15,000, with a winner expected to be back in Paxson by sometime Monday afternoon or evening.

In past years, the race has started in Glennallen, at the junction of the Richardson and Glenn highways and finished in Tolsona.

This year, race organizers decided to change things up a bit by starting and finishing the race at the Paxson Lodge.

Upon leaving the starting line at Paxson Lodge, mushers followed a trail to Chistochina, 58 miles down the Richardson Highway. It is the longest distance between any checkpoint on the trail.

Brent Sass of Fairbanks appeared to have the fastest time to Chistochina. He arrived at 6:35 p.m., almost 30 minutes ahead of the next musher.

Sass was the first team out of the starting chute at

1 p.m., with the remainder of the field leaving at 2-minute intervals until Abbie West of Two Rivers hit the trail at 2:40 p.m.

Race officials said mushers encountered a lot of overflow on the first part of the trail and were expecting more overflow near Gakona, which is on the 50-mile stretch of trail from Chistochina to Glennallen.

As of 10:30 p.m. Saturday evening, no teams had left the Chistochina checkpoint.

It won’t be known who is in the lead until teams finish their required 8-hour layover somewhere during the course of the race and times are adjusted to compensate for the interval start.

In addition to the mandatory 8-hour layover time, each team must take 10 more hours of rest at the musher’s discretion.

Mushers must complete the mandatory 8-hour layover before the last checkpoint at Meier’s Lake,

18 miles from the finish line.

After leaving Glennallen, mushers go 24 miles to Tolsona, 26 miles to Wolverine Lodge, 60 miles to Sourdough, 43 miles to Meier’s Lake Lodge and 18 miles to the finish line at Paxson Lodge.

Among the big names in the race this year are five-time Iditarod champion Rick Swenson of Two Rivers, former Iditarod champion Mitch Seavey of Seward, and former Yukon Quest champions Sonny Lindner of Two Rivers, Sebastian Schnuelle of Whitehorse and Aliy Zirkle of Two Rivers.

For more information on the race, go to the Copper Basin 300 website at http://www.cb300.com.

Contact the News-Miner sports department at 459-7581.