Iron dog racers look forward to warm, wet ride

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BIG LAKE -- At one of the warmest Iron Dog starts in race history, drivers unzipped jacket vents and got ready for a spring-like day on the trail Sunday.

"It's going to be a warm, wet ride," said Louis Miller III, patriarch of the father-son team from Anchorage.

He and son Louis Miller IV hope to be the rookie team with the fastest finish in the nearly 2,000-mile race that takes riders from Big Lake to Nome, and then on to Fairbanks. They'll compete against seasoned veterans for the $50,000 first-prize purse -- the largest ever for the world's longest, most difficult snowmachine race.

The Millers, on Polaris IQ machines, were the second of 29 teams to leave Big Lake.

Teams left at two-minute intervals with hundreds of race fans cheering them on and small airplanes and a helicopter circling overhead to catch a bird's-eye view of the action. With the temperature in the high 30s, children splashed in puddles of water and scooted down mounds of snow with jackets abandoned nearby.

Iron Dog officials said an icy course is in store for racers. Snow cover is adequate but not ideal, said Iron Dog board president Marianne Beckham.

A few hours into the race, one team was already out of the running.

Tommy Kriska of Fairbanks crashed his Arctic Cat Sno Pro just past Shell Lake and may have broken his arm, Iron Dog spokeswoman Heidi Griffin said. He was airlifted to a hospital. That left Tre West III of Nome without a partner in an event that requires racers to ride in pairs for safety reasons.

A few hours later, around 6:30 p.m., Tyler Aklestad of Wasilla and Tyson Johnson of Eagle River -- last year's runners-up -- were the first team to reach Rohn, about 250 miles into the race. Next to arrive were defending champions Todd Minnick and Nick Olstad of Wasilla, who trailed Aklestad-Johnson by about 10 minutes.

Last year, Aklestad and Johnson finished a scant three minutes behind defending champs Minnick and Olstad, and as they left Big Lake, they served notice that they're hungrier than ever. In the short, recorded thank-you to fans and sponsors played as each team waits to hit the throttle, Aklestad and Johnson said they "don't want to be the bridesmaids again."

The race's most famous fan, former Gov. Sarah Palin, watched husband Todd Palin and partner Scott Davis leave the starting chute on their Arctic Cat Sno Pros without a hitch.

A field of 29 teams are vying for a total purse of $184,400. Among them are two out-of-state teams: Darrick Johnson of Coeur D'Alene, Idaho, and partner Kurt Steiner of Bismarck, N.D., Daniel Lowrie of Albuquerque, N.M., and partner Raymond Rapp of Phoenix.

Lowrie and Rapp are racing for the first time on Alaska snow. To prepare, Lowrie said he and Rapp spent four days a week, five to eight hours a day, training in the deep powder of Durango, Colo., a three-hour drive from their homes.

But their most valuable lessons came in the last 10 days when they trained on Alaska's hard-packed trails -- or what used to be Alaska's hard-packed trails. When the pair arrived, the weather was still cool. Now, not so much.

"It'll be a bit wet, I guess, but you have to do the best you can," Lowrie said.

Another first-time team, Jana Pevan and Tammy Barber of Willow, are the third women's team to compete in the race. They'll get $2,000 if they make it to Nome and another $2,000 for arriving in Fairbanks -- an incentive officials introduced last year to get more women interested in racing.

In the racing pit during pre-race activities, Pevan said she was eager to hit the trail. She and Barber have been training for months. They started a weight-lifting and cardio workout plan last year, but took a forced break when Pevan broke her ankle in June. They picked up their training regimen in November, Pevan with a six-inch metal plate and five screws holding her ankle together. Since then, Pevan said, they've logged about 1,300 miles on their Polaris Dragons.

The pair might be rookies, but Barber has raced elsewhere and supported her husband, Shane Barber, during seven previous Iron Dogs. Now she's competing against her husband, who is paired with Aaron Loyer for his eighth Iron Dog race.

"I know his secrets," Tammy Barber said.

But she said some of the strategy of the race -- including the use of layovers to get a jump on other teams -- was lost this year when officials cut in half the number of possible layover spots. Under the new rules, racers will take a 12-hour layover in McGrath and two eight-hour stops in Galena and Unalakleet on the journey to Nome. On the route to Fairbanks, they'll stop again in Unalakleet and Galena, then in Tanana.

Beckham said the change makes it easier for fans and sponsors to drop in on the action throughout the race. It's also a safety bonus, she said, allowing race officials to more closely track which teams are in and out of checkpoints. Racers also carry GPS devices that track their movements, making it easy for fans to follow their route.

Babette Miller, wife of Louis Miller III and mom to Louis IV, said her family will be watching those GPS reports closely. More than 20 Miller family members were on hand to cheer the father-son duo, most of them waving cardboard signs of support.

Babette Miller said the winter of training has been a challenge, because her husband and son were rarely around. Now she's nervous as they head into the wilderness.

She tucked love letters into packages her husband will open down the trail, hoping they will help the 2,000 miles go faster.

"They'll keep him geared up to make it there quick," she said.