Outdoors/Adventure

Snowmachiners Faeo, McKenna may be Iron Dog favorites — but anything can happen

Pair a young reigning champion with a racing pedigree and a three-time victor, and what have you got?

Most would say a favorite — maybe even the favorite — in the Iron Dog, the 2,000-mile ultramarathon from Big Lake to Nome to Fairbanks. Scott Faeo, 32, of Wasilla, who won last year's race, is teaming up with 17-race veteran Marc McKenna, 41, of Anchorage in a bid to claim the first-place prize of $65,000, up from $50,000 a year ago.

"It's been really good, man," Faeo said of the pairing. "It's better than I thought it would be, actually. We're getting along really good."

Last year, Faeo, the son of seven-time champion John Faeo, who's tied with Scott Davis as the winningest driver in Iron Dog history, teamed with Eric Quam to win his first Iron Dog and return a championship to his family for the first time since 1996. The Faeos are the only parent-sibling winners in race history. The elder Faeo followed his son by air last year to support the team.

"He was stoked after the race, even if he never lets it show," Scott said of his father. But there's a price to be paid, too, in the form of advice — lots of advice.

"It's endless," Scott said. "Every night. But it's good, because there's always a few things here and there I can pick up.

"Now that I've won, I almost feel like I can't leave. I've got people telling me I have to break my dad's record. And something like that could take a very long time."

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Indeed. Look no further than Scott Davis of Soldotna, who shares the seven-victory Iron Dog record with Faeo. Davis won his first Iron Dog in 1985. And there he was 30 years later in the 2015 race, trying to catch the younger Faeo and Quam but coming up less than an hour short on his way to a second-place finish. Davis is sitting out this year's racing and considering retirement.

Unlike most Iron Dogs of recent years, much of the 2,000-mile trail has snow cover, which may smooth the trail a bit and allow drivers to race faster.

"The trail looks good," Faeo said. "It looks like the (Farewell) Burn (a bumpy 70-mile stretch between Rohn and Nikolai that saw a big forest fire decades ago) has some snow for the first time in a while. In fact, lots of places that had no snow last year have snow this year."

Other favorites in the snowmachine marathon include:

• Two-time champion Chris Olds of Eagle River and Mike Morgan of Nome, a regular top-five finisher.

• Three-time winner Todd Palin of Wasilla, 51, and veteran Shane Barber of Willow, seventh last year.

• Todd Minnick and Nick Olstad of Wasilla, both two-time champs.

• Up-and-coming driver Chad Gueco, 32, and five-time winner Dusty VanMeter of Kasilof, who has the distinction of being a Junior Iditarod sled dog racing champion before he turned to snowmachine racing.

• Six-time X-Games medalist Cory Davis, 27, the son of Scott Davis, and 33-year-old Ryan Simons of Alberta.

While those may be favorites on paper, veteran racers like McKenna know that labels mean little once the racing begins and snowmachine parts start to fray. "Something always shows its ugly face in this race," he said. "People don't realize how tough it can be. Teams can start out racing hard, and those same people can struggle just to finish."

That's why McKenna's partner says they plan to throttle back a bit at the beginning. "We're not going to try and push real hard the first day," Faeo said. "We'll be reeling people in later and let other riders break trail. We're comfortable not being the first team to Nome."

That's the midpoint of the Iron Dog, where all the racers shut it down for a day to rest before turning east toward the Fairbanks finish line. All the racers are stopped and held Friday night at the Tanana checkpoint to ensure a mid-day finish in Fairbanks, about 250 river miles away.

Who knows how many of the 41 pro class teams, second most in Iron Dog history, will remain in the race at that point. Sixty percent of them have at least one rookie.

If a team aboard Polaris machines wins, it would mark the sixth in eight years for that manufacturer, following a streak of four straight Arctic Cat victories.

"I've always been with Polaris," said Scott Faeo. "We're a factory-sponsored team, and I went to Minnesota last fall and talked to their engineers. When we won last year, it was the same day they were unveiling their new sled for the year. It was amazing to me how many people know about the Iron Dog and were following it."

Contact Mike Campbell at mcampbell(at)alaskadispatch.com

CORRECTIONS: An earlier version said driver Dusty VanMeter is a four-time champion; he's won five Iron Dogs. It also said Cory Davis is a four-time X-Games medalist; he's collected six medals.

Mike Campbell

Mike Campbell was a longtime editor for Alaska Dispatch News, and before that, the Anchorage Daily News.

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