A Whitehorse man who won this year's Alcan 200 Road Rally on the Haines Highway said weather conditions were terrible during Saturday's event, in which a crash left a fellow racer dead.

The death of Jeffrey Peede, 38, of North Pole, Alaska, was the first fatality for the annual snowmobile road race, now in its 40th year.

Peede's snowmobile collided with a guardrail along the Haines Highway shortly after the race had begun on Three Guardsman Pass on the B.C. side of the B.C.-Alaska border Saturday morning. He was pronounced dead at the health centre in Haines, Alaska.

Whitehorse resident Travis Adams, who won the race from the border to Dezadeash, Yukon, and back, said blowing snow nearly obliterated the highway, especially on the return leg.

"There were times when they basically looked like the road got taken back by the snow," Adams told CBC News on Monday, adding that conditions were the worst he had seen in the 10 or 11 Alcan 200 races he's competed in.

"The only thing that you could see was the snow markers on either side of the road, and that's how you gauged where the road was at," he said. "There was no highway."

Adams said he and other racers were asked at Dezadeash whether they wanted to keep racing, and most voted in favour of continuing on.

At that point, Adams said racers knew Peede had been badly injured on the way up, but no one knew he had died until after the race was finished.

Alcan 200 officials said the race's top finishers donated their winnings to Peede's family.

Winner unsure if he'll race again

RCMP in Haines Junction, Yukon, Alaska State Troopers and police in Haines, Alaska, are investigating the crash.

As for the future, Adams said he is a father now and he's thinking it may be time to give up his more dangerous sports, such as snowmobile road racing.

"The night before the race, I went to bed at 10:30 and I think I slept for a total of one hour all night long. I just tossed and turned and thought about the race, so my nerves are getting worse," he said.

"I don't know if I'll race again next year."

At the same time, he added that Peede's death has not affected most other competitors' love of the race.

However, the race's future may be in question: Snowmobile road racing is banned in Alaska, and Adams said he's not sure if the B.C. and Yukon governments will allow the Alcan 200 to continue.

A spokesperson for the Yukon Highways Department told CBC News that it reviews every Alcan 200 event after it's done each year, and said it has yet to decide whether to allow the race to continue.