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NOME — While Sterling’s Mitch Seavey and his dogs ran in pursuit of Jeff King late Friday night, vying for the All-Alaska Sweepstakes’ $100,000 winner-take-all jackpot, another Seavey was in the hunt to be first onto Front Street.

About the time Seavey headed into Solomon — 30 miles from the finish line and on the heels of King — Janine Seavey was 27,000 feet above the trail, aboard an Alaska Airlines flight. She kept her fingers crossed that she would land on time before her husband’s team made the final push off the frozen Bering Sea coast and into this once-booming Gold Rush town.

Down below, Mitch had gained time on King and actually passed the four-time Iditarod champion from Denali Park after trailing for much of the round-trip race from Nome to Candle. Seavey’s steadfast dogs were on pace to make history as the fastest sled dog team to ever complete the 408-mile trail.

“It’s pins and needles until you get under the arch,” said Mitch, who eventually broke “Iron Man” John Johnson’s record by about 13 hours.

On the way here to Front Street, mushers often daydream about which family members will come to stand under the burled arch to greet them. On Friday night, Mitch could name one: his son Danny, one of three members of his pit crew. But Mitch wasn’t all that optimistic Janine could make the trip.

She was scheduled to be in Montana to help with the wedding plans of their other son, Dallas. But Danny called his mom along the trail on his satellite phone, giving her periodic updates to let her know Montana might have to wait. So Janine relayed the news to Dallas to say she might head north instead of south. Perhaps a bit envious, Dallas understood. He had followed his dad on a snowmachine along the 1,100-mile Iditarod trail earlier this month.

“When I saw Mitch had a very good chance of winning, we changed plans to get here to celebrate,” Janine said. “It was a close call.”

She was here when he crossed under the burled arch first in 2004 to win his first Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, so she certainly wasn’t about to miss this victory.

A similar story happened here in March 2007 when Fairbanks’ Lance Mackey became the first musher to win the Yukon Quest and the Iditarod in the same year. Mackey was hoping his father and 1978 Iditarod champion, Dick Mackey, would be underneath the burled arch waiting for his son to arrive.

But he was stuck in an Alaska Airlines plane headed from Kotzebue to Nome when Lance crossed the finish line. His father arrived about 45 minutes too late.

Janine almost duplicated the Mackey’s story when her flight from Anchorage to Kotzebue was delayed.

“When the plane stopped, I called people to find out what was going on,” she said. “Every time I called something had changed because the checkpoints were so close together.”

Stuck in Kotzebue, everyone on the plane listened for Janine’s updates. They wanted to know if her husband was any closer to bankrolling $100,000.

The plane finally took off and headed to Nome. It landed around 9 p.m., 2 1/2 hours before Mitch finished the 12th running of the Sweepstakes, a historic race celebrating its 100th anniversary.

“Just in the nick of time,” Janine said.

Mitch was ecstatic to see his wife waiting in her red parka. Other than his lead dogs, Payton and Ditka, she was the first human Mitch hugged after crossing the finish line. But Mitch was even more impressed at how many spectators had come out to watch history being made.

Her husband was on his way to win the biggest paycheck ever seen in an Alaska professional sports event.

“It reminded me of what it was like in the old days,” Mitch said. “People happy and excited and lining the street. It’s really neat for an event like that to take place just for a silly old dog musher.”

With the Seavey’s son a week away from a marriage ceremony in the Lower 48, Mitch was asked how he plans to spend the $100,000. He replied:

“That’s a big chunk of change. I’m sure my lovely wife will help me decide what I’ll do with that money.”