Iron Dog: Nome brothers prepare to hit the trail
Sitting on a workbench under a 38-year-old Kitty Cat snowmachine, you’d never guess that Nome brothers Jarvis and Jordan Miller are leaving to do the Kotzebue loop in a little over 12 hours. If they are nervous about racing in the upcoming Iron Dog snowmachine race, they sure aren’t showing it.
Jordan, 32, says, they’ve already ridden over 1,000 miles, and “by the time we’re done, we’ll have about 2,500 or so before the race.”
Jarvis, 30, explains that the need to ride the length of the race before the race is to get the body used to it, both the human and the machine.
The brothers are racing on SkiDoo Renegade 600Rs sleds. As they admired their practice rigs — set up the same way as their race sleds— they said their race sleds will have more reinforcements. Right now, the brothers are testing the lights and shocks.
Lights and shocks in particular were something that all of the Nome racers interviewed before the Iron Dog mentioned, but the Millers were the first to really explain the scale of the decisions. Suspension is understandable: the racers are going 2,645 miles over all different sorts of terrain, and at high speeds. And when you’re riding at those speeds, Jordan says, you can outrun your stock headlight.
Outrunning, or overdriving, headlights, is a serious safety concern, which happens when the stopping distance of the vehicle is longer than the throw distance of the headlight. If you’re going fast at night, but the headlights don’t go far enough to show you a tree or rock in the way, you won’t have enough time to react.
Jarvis holds up his arms, “it’s pretty amazing with these lights, when you turn them on, there’ll be a beam that’s comparable to a 55-gallon drum wide-wise. With a stock headlight, 20 feet in front of you,
there’s bumps. Now, when it’s pitch black on the Yukon, you turn these lights on and it’s like…”
“… driving a car,” Jordan says. The brothers completed each other’s sentences several times throughout the interview, and that definitely plays a role in their race. Riding with Jarvis is great, Jordan says, because “I can read him better than most people. When we’re talking on the radios, it’s short and sweet, everything we say, bump, stop, turn. It’s quick, and we understand each other, so that makes it nice.”
Jarvis agrees, saying the whole family is behind them, too. “Dad’s big into it, he’s out here helping, doing what he can. There’s a lot of late nights, getting meals out here. There’s a lot of late nights. We’re very thankful for the families and other halves that let us do this because it is a big deal.”
Family got them into racing. Jarvis said “My uncle Jerry and his kids were into racing big, and just being a kid over there and helping prep for stuff. They let me stud tracks. The small stuff, wipe down their snow machines. Just seeing it you get into it and…”
“…get hooked,” Jordan finished. The Kitty Cat snowmachine was Jarvis’ first sled, which he raced in 1997. Moving around the garage, there are all of the trophies, too. 2009 was Jarvis’ first cross country race, running the Nome-Golovin 200, and he talks about the Kotzebue race, Cannonball and a Elim-Koyuk race in 2011. His first Iron Dog was in 2019, when he took fifth place with Amos Cruise from McGrath, and was Rookie of the Year.
Jordan and Jarvis attempted the Iron Dog together last year, but had to scratch at Puntilla.
The decision to race this year was mutual. “I think we both just started talking about it and right then we agreed we would do it,” Jordan said.
Once the decision has been made, though, there’s still a lot of work that goes into it, and a lot of support needed to make it happen.
“I want to say we signed up in… ” Jordan starts;
“…August is sign up, and even before that you’re thinking about rigs, your parts, talking to people along the trail for places to stay, help if you need it, just making sure everyone’s on board with what you plan,” Jarvis continued. “You got a lot of people behind you, with you. The support system here is huge.”
Family and friends are the biggest supporters, Jarvis said. “Just us couldn’t do it alone. There’s a mile long list of people behind us that are helping us even get to the starting line.”
“It’s a feat in itself to be able to sign up,” Jordan added.
All of that extra support is especially important this year. If the supply chain disruption was causing problems at Christmas, just think what it could do to snowmachine parts. Explaining their planning, Jordan said that they had to order parts and accessories months in advance.
“Stuff we’ve ordered before October, they’re telling us it won’t be here. Luckily, we have spares, but there’s stuff that we still haven’t received. The lead time on that, especially this year, the worst, is getting stuff, thinking about what you’ll need, way ahead of the game,” Jarvis said.
Despite this, they have just about all of the parts to make another snowmachine waiting for them in boxes along the trail, just in case mechanicals happen. They can fix most anything on the sleds but know from past experience that there are still issues that can cause a team to scratch.
Since the race is also extremely physically demanding, why do they do it?
“I’ve just been hooked to racing. I don’t think I can’t do it. Snowmachine racing is just what we do,” Jarvis said.
“You see country that you’d never see. You can fly over in a jet, but being on the ground, actually looking up, and feeling small, it’s pretty neat,” said Jordan.