Iron Dog leaders in tight race

Can Todd Minnick, the 29-year-old Wasilla racer who studied at the elbow of Iron Dog great John Faeo, and partner 26-year-old Nick Olstad hang on to win?

Or will this be the year two-time runner up Tyson Johnson, the kid who grew up with a throttle under his thumb out on the Yentna River north of Anchorage, finally gets that long awaited Iron Dog victory along with 23-year-old partner Tyler Aklestad, himself an Iron Dog bridesmaid in 2007

When the race stopped Friday night at the Yukon River village of Tanana, less than 12 minutes separated the two teams.

Minnick and Olstad had been more than 30 minutes in front when the world's longest and toughest snowmachine race reached Nome at midweek and stopped for a celebration that lasted a day and a half.

But the lead pair has been losing ground ever since.

"We were actually leading for a little while today,'' Johnson said when reached by telephone in Tanana Friday afternoon. "We caught those guys, and then we broke track for a while.''

He and Aklestad eventually backed off, however, for a couple reasons.

"We wanted to conserve fuel and be sure we made it,'' Johnson said, "and I didn't want to go any faster and risk crashing. It was pretty rough from Ruby to here. It was soft powder, but it was covering a lot of jagged ice. It would throw your sled all over the place. It was dangerous out there.''

Johnson was hoping no one crashed and got hurt as the teams behind closed on Tanana, where everyone is held overnight to guarantee a daylight finish in Fairbanks.

Twelve minutes is nothing to make up if the lead team is breaking trail through fresh snow, but it's a lot to make up if the trail is packed and smooth.

Thus, what is good news for Minnick and Olstad was bad news for Johnson and Aklestad:

There is reportedly good trail all the way down the Tanana River to the finish line.

"It's not going to be easy" to win, Johnson said.

But it's not impossible either. One little misfire from Polaris Dragons that have, to this point, served Minnick and Olstad so well, and Johnson and Aklestad could go flying past on their Ski-Doo Rev XPs.

"Their blowing a belt might be about what it would take,'' Johnson said.

Experienced racers can change a belt in minutes, but by the time you get the sled stopped, get the cowling up, get the old belt off, get the new belt on, and get back up to speed, well, those minutes add up.

Still at this point, the race that began in Big Lake on Sunday and then crossed much of the state is more Minnick and Olstad's to lose than Johnson and Aklestad's to win.

"We're all running about the same pace,'' Johnson said, and it's not because anyone is holding back. Both teams have their throttles pegged to the handlebars whenever they can. On good trail, they're all hitting 85 or 90 mph, which is near top speed.

"The sleds we practice on are always about 10 mph faster than our Iron Dog sleds," Johnson added. That's largely due to the weight of mandatory gear racers carry on their race sleds and the addition of some parts to beef up suspension systems that take a pounding because of that extra weight.

There's not much racers can do about any of that now to try to gain top end speed. All they can do is smash the throttle, go as fast as they can and hope they get to Fairbanks first.

It is expected to be close. In shorter distance races -- which is what this Iron Dog has effectively come down to -- Minnick, Olstad, Aklestad and Johnson regularly vie with each other for victories. About the only difference they face now is that instead of competing for individual honors, they need to race together as teams.

Among the four, only Olstad has previously enjoyed Iron Dog victory. Barring some huge and unforeseen change, he's likely to be joined by one of the other four as an Iron Dog champ today.

A finish around noon is expected.

Find Craig Medred online at adn.com/contact/cmedred or call 257-4588.