SHAKTOOLIK, Alaska -- Ramey Brooks cut half an hour from the lead of Martin Buser in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race on Sunday.

Buser, a three-time champion, still had a lead of 2½ hours, and with a bigger team than his closest pursuer.

Brooks rested a few minutes less in Shaktoolik than did Buser, and made the run from Unalakleet about eight minutes faster. And a lead of 2½ hours isn't much with more than 200 miles left in the 1,100-mile race.

Buser is moving at a pace faster than the race record set in 2000 by Doug Swingley. At Unalakleet, he was three hours ahead of Swingley's record pace that put him in Nome in just over nine days.

But along the coast, the wind was fierce, with gusts to nearly 50 mph.

Buser left Shaktoolik for the 48-mile run to Koyuk at 4:38 p.m. Sunday afternoon. Brooks took off in pursuit at 7:08 p.m.

Buser spent 4 hours, 56 minutes at the checkpoint. Brooks rested his dogs for 4:37.

A Swiss-born musher, Buser had 12 dogs in his team when he left Shaktoolik, Brooks had nine.

John Baker pulled into Shaktoolik at 5:58 p.m., which put him about six hours behind the leader. Baker had 10 dogs in his team.

Shaktoolik is 219 miles from the finish in Nome. The winning musher is expected to finish sometime Tuesday, collecting more than $60,000.

Six of the 64 mushers who started the race had scratched by Sunday evening. The rest were on the trail, stretched out from Buser to rookie Rick Horstman, who was out of Ophir, 679 miles from Nome. Defending champion Swingley, who declared earlier that he was touring, not racing, was out of Cripple, in 46th place.