A gang of seven was making its way west along the Yukon River at nearly 50 mph Monday night as the Iron Dog snowmachine race roared toward the halfway point in Nome. Racers will reach the town of golden sands beside the Bering Sea on Tuesday.
Paced by Polaris riders Chris Olds, 42, from Eagle River, and Mike Morgan, 28, from Nome, they shot across the Interior from McGrath to Ruby during the daylight hours with defending champions Marc McKenna from Anchorage and Dusty Van Meter from Kasilof close behind on their Skidoos.
By 6:10 p.m., the top three teams were taking one of their mandatory eight-hour rests in Kaltag, the final checkpoint on the Yukon River before the racers head toward the Bering Sea and Alaska's west coast. Olds and Morgan were the first to arrive at 5:45 p.m., followed by the team of Shane Barber and Ryan Sottosanti of Willow at 6:07 p.m. A minute later, the father-son duo of Andy and Brad George pulled in on their Ski-Doos.
At one point Monday, a GPS satellite tracking system showed all seven teams of 14 riders --- they compete in pairs for safety -- strung out along 20 miles of trails with teammates sometimes intermixed.
The lead group included past champs Andy George, Nick Olstad and Todd Minnick, all from Wasilla. Right there with them was seven-time winner Scott Davis from Soldotna, a 54-year-old once-retired racer whose son, 25-year-old Cory Davis, was also in the lead group with partner Ryan Simons from Camrose, Alberta. Simons is the only Canadian in the race.
No Canadian has ever won the 2,000-mile Iron Dog, the world's longest and toughest snowmachine race. Neither has a rider from Outside, the Alaska term for the lower 48 states.
Brian Dick, an Arctic Cat team rider from Thief River Falls, Minn., was considered a contender, but he and teammate Eric Quam from Palmer had a big wreck on the Yentna River the first day of the race. They made repairs but have been struggling to fight their way back to the front ever since.
In even worse shape was former champion Todd Palin, the biggest celebrity in the race. He's known for being the husband of former Alaska governor and now political celebrity Sarah Palin. He and teammate Tyler Huntington, a two-time champion himself, suffered what was apparently an electrical problem with one of their machines on the first day of the race and had to go about 100 miles in the wrong direction -- all the way back to Todd's shop in Wasilla, near where the race started -- to make repairs.
Iron Dog officials said Monday morning the Palin/Huntington team was planning to stay in the race, but with their competitors half a state ahead, they later scratched from the competition.
By 7 p.m. Monday, five teams had scratched.
Contact Craig Medred at craig(at)alaskadispatch.com.