IRON DOG 2020 Snow Machine Race

2020 Iron Dog – Day 2 Coverage
https://www.thealaskalife.com/blog/2020-iron-dog-day-2-coverage/

Bad visibility, racers off course, and sunken sleds are just part of the norm for Iron Dog racers and Day 2 found teams tasting a little bit of each as the front-runners made their way up the Western coast of Alaska and then making a right hand turn toward Kotzebue instead of taking a left toward Nome.

As of writing, 22 racing teams are left in the running for the top prize while 7 teams have been forced from the race for a litany of reasons. Among those scratched was Team 9 who had left Kaltag on the Yukon River headed toward Unalakleet and found one of their sleds sunk in a creek. The free racer returned to Kaltag where a few race fans went back to the sunk sled to aid in recovery of the sled and also give the racer a ride back. Once a racer receives outside help, they are officially scratched from the race.

According to a post on the official Iron Dog Facebook page: “Teams continue to make their way through Unalakleet, most recently teams 37, 19, 22, 4 and 24. According to checker John Wilson, they are traveling together out of Unalakleet for safety’s sake. The storm has intensified and the flakes are larger, creating blinding conditions.”

More/maps/pics at link.

Note: Team 7 made it to Kotzebue - 1st Pro Team.

Here’s one AK Life hasn’t posted yet:

Team 39 Schachle/Barber, 2nd into Kotz yesterday, scratched this morning. Here’s the reason per Cody Barber:

“Well guys, we gave it an honest effort, but unfortunately we’re being forced to call it quits here in kotz, had a great run, sleds are clean and did their job. We just took a very unfortunate hit causing robbbies collar bone to break in a few places. We rode 200 miles after that happened, but after x Rays, it’ll be in our best interest to not race on due to sharp bone pointing towards lungs and artery.

Thanks again to all of our support, it just wasn’t our year, we’ll get them next time.”

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Can you even imagine riding 200 miles [on rough terrain & in near blizzard conditions no less] on a snow machine with your collarbone in a couple of pieces? Tough, tough guys.

2020 Iron Dog – Day 3 Coverage
https://www.thealaskalife.com/blog/2020-iron-dog-day-3-coverage/

Updates since the article:

Team 7 - first in Nome!
Team 7 plane did go down, pilot/co-pilot are ok, but reported the plane is “bent”.
Team 6 - not out with the plane, the problem was their GPS wasn’t pinging. After 3 hours, the GPS started pinging & they were showing well down the trail towards White Mountain, to everyone’s relief.

Some fantastic video today from locals at checkpoints ... Koyuk was particularly good - got to see some wrenching, hear some stories as the racers came through.

The Canadian Expedition:

Team 37 [Fosty/Hildebrand], two Canadians, running Iron Dog for the first time - gotta love these guys .... The new course includes a loop (i.e. think balloon on a string) including Kotzebue & some smaller villages. There is no checkpoint where the string attaches. To do this part (about 400 miles), you go north up the string, hang a left to Kotzebue, then continue around through Norvik, Kiana, & Selawik, then down the string through Buckland, then west at Koyuk to Nome.

These Canadians missed the ‘string’ on their loop around and ended up making a circle ... back to Kotz!! Needless to say, they were very discouraged. The Kotz checkpoint had closed; however, the good folks there ramped back up to get these guys fuel/oil & food. Folks on FB were cheering them on - get back on the trail - you can do it!! They did get back on the trail & made it as far as Buckland, where they were put up for the night. Somewhere in there, they took advantage of their 6 hour flex layover. They still need to make it to Nome - looking at the rules, it’s not crystal clear what the deadline is, but all are hoping that if Iron Dog has to make a decision, the Canadians will still be in the race!

The course this year is new & there were lots of ‘wrong’ turns, but it is “point to point” - the main thing is you cannot miss the checkpoints. If you take a detour into the Granite Mtns or by the hot springs, or out on the sea ice to come into Kotz the ‘wrong’ way, it all works ... and except for making a circle, the different routes have all worked out ok, with some being really fast (sea ice) & racers making up time.

One more thing I really have liked about the ‘new route’, the race is being run as a ‘stage’ race as opposed to the multi-layovers of the past. Fairbanks to Galena (Stage 1); Galena to Kotzebue (Stage 2), Kotz to Nome (Stage 3) for the first half. A big discussion item yesterday - who is breaking trail on the 2nd half after they got dumped with snow? Looks like people were working out crews for doing just that. The Rec class was in chest deep snow so trails would be “helpful”! The leaders would rather be racing than digging their way through while the rest of the pack catches up, so a trail would be ‘nice’. Also, I learned about 144s/long tracks yesterday. Todd Palin is running a 144 & I think Todd Minnick is also running a ‘long’ track which gives more flotation on snow than shorter tracks. Two Todds ... do they know something that non-Todds don’t(?) ..... other than being wily veterans!

Link on tracks:

Snowmobile Track Size Guide
https://www.sportsrec.com/346541-snowmobile-track-size-guide.html

2020 Iron Dog – Day 4 Coverage
https://www.thealaskalife.com/blog/2020-iron-dog-day-4-coverage/

See the link for lots of good info .... from the link, here’s what is waiting the racers in the second half:

Arguably the more challenging part of this race is still to come, and we have already seen lots of chatter on Facebook about snow and trail conditions from Ruby south through Poorman and Ophir and on toward McGrath. The locals are reporting an immense amount of freshly fallen snow and no trail for several hundred miles. There has talk about locals going out with long track machines to break trail before the racers arrive, but nobody is sure how any of that will pan out. A similar story is shaping up further south through the Alaska Range and on toward the finish line. Dumping snow on the north and south side of Puntilla Lake and all the way to the finish line. As teams get farther south of Puntilla Lake, the trails will be open mainly due to the fact that locals use them for daily transportation but from the Farewell Burn toward Shell Lake, racers may have a rough time on what may be largely an unbroken trail.

The Iron Dog board president Rodger Brown was fitted with both a GPS tracker and a Skidoo Skandic super wide track sled to help begin the break-in process in galena headed to Poorman and then south toward Ophir. You can follow Rodgers progress on the main GPS tracking page.

As of writing, 13 teams have been forced from the race while 16 teams are still in the running for the top prize. With the weather, snowfall, and known trail conditions south of Kaltag toward the finish, we do expect to see the amount of teams on the leaderboard to continue to dwindle as the miles to the finish dwindle as well.

“Canadian Expedition” update for Team #37:

Just after 4PM, the last team to arrive to Nome were the boys from rural Manitoba. The Canadians lost a considerable amount of trail time by taking a wrong turn on the new northern loop but stuck with it and has safely made it to the halfway point.

2020 Iron Dog – Day 5 Coverage
https://www.thealaskalife.com/blog/2020-iron-dog-day-5-coverage/

Article has good info:

Wrench times
Robby Schachle’s collar bone x-ray (before/after surgery)
Split times: Nome to White Mtn; White Mtn to Koyuk; Koyuk to Shaktoolik; Shaktoolik to Unalakleet

“We reported yesterday that the Iron Dog board president Rodger Brown was breaking trail south from Ruby and it has been a slow endeavor since then. They are making good progress but one track with snow still falling might mean some interesting trail conditions for these guys tomorrow. We are going to see lots of shakeups due to layover times and the roughest section of trail is still to come.”

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Updates since article (except T6 layover):

Team 06 laying over in Kaltag [Johnson/George]
Team 05 laying over in Kaltag [Lapham/Weisz]

Team 07 into Ruby (layover)[Olstad/Aklestad]
Team 10 on the way to Ruby [Morgan/Olds]
Team 16 on the way to Ruby [Minnick/Thibault]

Racers Approach Ophir and Finish at Big Lake, Morgan & Olds Close The Gap
https://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2020/02/21/racers-approach-ophir-and-finish-at-big-lake-morgan-olds-close-the-gap/

The top four Iron Dog 2020 teams are out of the Poorman checkpoint and racing towards Ophir, but according to trail organizers, it is unlikely to be an easy ride due to deep snow and trail obstructions.

Those top teams are heading from Poorman to Ophir, where trail breakers have been working overnight to clear the way for racers. According to an Iron Dog press release, heavy snow and high winds have obliterated sections of this trail. Trail breakers have marked areas where large timbers block the trail. Further down the race trail, a trail breaker near McGrath had a frightening incident that Iron Dog shared on social media. A young bull moose charged at the trail breaker, hitting the kill switch on the snowmachine and denting the sled. The volunteer was unharmed, but wildlife is always an obstacle for racers to keep in mind.

More at link.

Note (from Facebook posts) - moose are hanging out on the trail because the snow is very deep (one FB pic of a trail breaker chest deep). The moose are “tired, wore out, pissed” & are not getting off the trail for anybody.

Team 7, Aklestad and Oldstad, are 2020 Iron Dog champions
https://www.irondog.org/news/team-7-aklestad-and-oldstad-are-2020-iron-dog-champions

“Team 7, Tyler Aklestad and Nick Oldstad are your Iron Dog 2020 champions.

The pair, who led the way the entire race, crossed the Big Lake finish line at 1:18:37 p.m. Saturday, after what many are calling the most challenging Iron Dog race ever. This year’s race was revamped to start in Fairbanks and include an additional 375-mile loop that passes through Kotzebue. The additional mileage, along with extreme weather, took its toll on the machines and riders, and as of Saturday afternoon, there were only 11 teams left of an original roster of 29 teams.

Aklestad and Olstad had four previous wins between them — Aklestad in 2016 with Tyson Johnson, and Olstad in 2014 and 2009 with Todd Minnick, and 2005 with Marc McKenna. This is their first time finishing the race together, setting the new record of 50 hours, 8 minutes and 3 seconds on the new course.”

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Iron Dog fans are waiting for the Canadian team (37) to finish - due to their wrong turn, they’ve gone farther than any other team. They didn’t give up, but stayed with it. They have many new fans ... family members have flown to the finish. Unfortunately, they’ll finish late enough (still 153 miles from finish) that the finish line is being torn down (booooo!!!!); however, I think they’ll have quite a few fans turn out to see them come in & hopefully, fans will live stream. There are 3 teams more or less staying together (22, 24, 37) & team 8 is the last team on the course.

Catching up .......

2020 Iron Dog – Day 6 Coverage
https://www.thealaskalife.com/blog/2020-iron-dog-day-6-coverage/

“After a grueling 20 hour layover…for race fans, the leaders have left the checkpoint of Ruby and are headed south toward the finish in Big Lake. The top three teams (7, 10, and 16) opted to take the 20 hours of layover time in Ruby. The decision was largely made due to the fact that the trail to Ophir was not established and reports from trail-breakers were not favorable.” More at link ......

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2020 Iron Dog – Day 7 Coverage
https://www.thealaskalife.com/blog/2020-iron-dog-day-7-coverage/

“47 minutes is all that separated the top 3 teams leaving the last checkpoint of Skwentna, just 89 miles from the finish line in Big Lake. Team 7 was followed by Team 10 and Team 5, respectively, but Chris Olds and Mike Morgan didn’t have enough trail in front of them to catch Tyler Aklestad and Nick Olstad of Team 7 before they crossed the finish line at 1:18PM. That 47 minute separation was a bit erroneous in the sense that racers were held at Puntilla Lake to make for more of an eventful finish for spectators. Team 7 had an overall course time of 50 hours 8 minutes and an average moving speed of 47.75 mph.

This has been an eventful week following the teams as they traveled an incredible distance through some of the most harsh terrain you can on a snowmachine (snowmobile for Team 37 out of Manitoba), and we want to congratulate every one of the teams who even made it as far as the starting line. Each one can now say ‘I’m an Iron Dogger’. Well done.”