Iron Dog snowmachine race starts next week
With recent warm weather and snowy conditions in Alaska’s Interior and Southcentral, the 2023 Iron Dog promises to be a tough race. Twentyfive pairs of racers in the pro class will leave Big Lake Friday morning, Feb. 17, to compete in the world’s longest cross-country snowmachine competition. They will traverse more than 2,500 miles of challenging, backcountry terrain, pausing at 21 checkpoints, including a halfway stop in Nome.
In 2020 the race organizers added an extra 470-mile loop to Kotzebue, which the competitors will run in the opposite direction this year (clockwise instead of counterclockwise). After a mandatory hold in Kotzebue on Sunday night, Feb. 19, the teams should all arrive in Nome sometime during the afternoon of Monday, Feb. 20.
“Different from years past, you should have all the teams here within a three or four-hour window in daylight,” Doug Dixon, president of the Iron Dog board, told the Nugget last week when he was visiting Nome with other race organizers. “I think it’s going to provide a lot more excitement here.”
Stacey Green of Nome, who is on the Iron Dog board of directors, said he is introducing another local change that should make it easier for onlookers to visit with the racers.
“Traditionally, we’ve been stopped on the road, where the clock stops and starts on the ramp,” Green said. But this year he plans to record the racers’ times and then escort them straight to City Hall, where a big inflatable arch will be set up on Front Street. Nome will host the halfway ceremonies and banquet at the Mini Convention Center on Tuesday, Feb. 21. Then, the next morning, the teams will leave from the ramp.
“Hopefully you get good weather, no wind, mild temperatures and you’ll have a crowd,” Dixon said.
Hometown racers prepare
Weather has already thrown a wrench into the competitors’ training
schedules. Heavy snow was falling on the McGrath area, cutting off racers who wanted to do a full training run of the course, including Mike Morgan of Nome.
“Mother Nature dictates everything, and here she is again, showing us who’s boss,” said Morgan, who is preparing to embark on his 14th run.
Morgan and his teammate Chris Olds of Eagle River are hungry for another win after finishing second in the 2022 Iron Dog, with a time of 56 hours, 22 minutes and 21 seconds. Tyler Aklestad and Nick Olstad were last year’s winners, finishing in 53 hours, 27 minutes and 21 seconds, and they will be competing again this year. Morgan and Olds previously won the Iron Dog twice, in 2018 and 2019, and Olds has two additional victories under his belt, 2010 and 2011, with a different team partner. That second-place finish “does’’t sit well with me or Chris,” Morgan said. “We’ve been working hard and we’re trying to get back on top. We have really high expectations for ourselves.”
For the second year in a row, the pair will be racing on Polaris Cross Country 600 sleds, created on the Matryx platform. They have been working with Polaris on developing these limited-build race sleds after previously using consumer-based models.
“We’re putting a lot of miles on equipment, and we’re taking these things through the roughest terrain in the country, so they get a lot of valuable feedback from us,” Morgan said.
After a very “physically demanding” race last year, with warm weather creating some messy conditions in the Interior, Morgan said he’s expecting an even more challenging run this year.
“We’ve got a ton of snow in the Interior, even more so than we had last year, which is going to create a really rough scenario,” he said. “It’s like déjà vu all over again from last year. We got the warm weather, we got the deep snow, which creates the bumps that get twice as big. You just have to be tough, and you have to be mentally prepared for those rough days.”
In the face of those challenges, Morgan said he’ll try to preserve a sense of normalcy on the trail.
“I brought my French press in the plane last year,” Morgan said. (His father, Stan Morgan, will be the pilot for the team, following them in the support plane.) “I’ll probably do the same thing this year so I can maintain my morning regimen. It helps me start my day out on a good note, and I always try to eat a big breakfast with eggs and bacon. A big part of Iron Dog really is staying on pace.”
The race indeed not only requires speed but also strategy, as the teams must decide on the best route to take and make decisions about when to rest and refuel. Morgan said he warns less experienced competitors that their race can start to unravel when they deviate from a normal schedule. He tells them they’ll have a much easier time if they just set incremental goals to make it to a cer
tain checkpoint before nighttime, get their rest, get their food and get their hydration.
“When you’re riding at night when you’re usually asleep, you’re making poor decisions because you’re tired,” Morgan said. “Things snowball really fast in Iron Dog. You just got to be on top of things and stay organized and stay focused.”
The race demands a great deal of teamwork, too, as the riders must support each other along the way and make sure that they both reach the finish line. Morgan said that he and Olds are “pretty much brothers at this point.”
“We just keep communication open,” he said. “We fight like brothers sometimes, and we have different opinions on certain things sometimes, but we’ve got a common goal and we just do whatever it takes to meet that common goal.”
A pair of actual brothers from Nome will be racing in this year’s Iron Dog, too. Jordan and Jarvis Miller are preparing to hit the trail again after finishing seventh in last year’s race. They also attempted the race together in 2021 but had to scratch at Puntilla. In 2019, when Jarvis competed in his first Iron Dog, he was named Rookie of the Year and finished in fifth place with teammate Amos Cruise of McGrath.
The brothers are hoping to get 2,500 miles worth of practice ahead of the race, but their training was also stymied by the conditions in the Interior.
“The race snowmachines are not really set up for opening up trails,” Jordan said. “When you get stuck, that’s 650 pounds that you got to get unstuck.”
The Millers will be racing SkiDoo 600 competition sleds this year, almost identical to the sleds they used last year. The brothers said they are doing more training out of Anchorage this year to get used to riding in the trees so they can be more competitive with the racers who are from that area. But they also see some advantages in being intimately familiar with the types of conditions snow-machiners face between Nome and Kotzebue.
“It definitely throws people for a loop if they’ve never been up there,” Jordan said. “The weather typically is not that nice, from Unalakleet to Kotzebue and back up to Nome.”
Last year, teams arrived in Nome under stormy conditions, with wet snow and strong winds. If the weather cooperates and visibility is good this year, the Millers and others will be treated to a welcome sight as they approach Nome for their long stopover.
“As soon as you come up and over Cape Nome and you can see the lights of town, that’s a good feeling,” Jordan said.
This year’s race has a $200,000 purse to be distributed among the top teams. Last year the winners took home $45,000, while the secondplace team got $35,000 and the thirdplace team won $25,000. This year there will also be more than $50,000 in contingency prizes.
The racers’ fuel and oil are paid for in their $3,675 entry fee. But during training they must cover their own costs.
“We try to offset that with sponsors, but it’s no joke for sure,” Morgan said. He noted that he recently paid $10 per gallon in Nikolai and that gas was $15 per gallon in Puntilla. The Miller brothers also noted that shipping and airfare has become very expensive recently.
“All the guys that are building their snowmachines at home in Nome and Kotzebue are definitely feeling that price increase in shipping parts and with the airlines,” Jordan said.
Of the 50 snowmachiners in the competition this year, about a quarter are from rural Alaska and 18 are rookies, meaning they have never finished an Iron Dog. The race also includes an expedition —or recreational— class that will depart from Big Lake next Wednesday. The organizers said those snowmachiners should start arriving in Nome on
Sunday, Feb. 19.
In their final days of preparation, race organizers and volunteers are working on making sure the trail is prepared. Green, for example, was busy staking the trail between Nome and Topkok. Volunteers were marking other sections as well.
“This race couldn’t happen without volunteers,” said Iron Dog executive director Mike Vasser.
The organizers and the racers alike expressed their gratitude for the communities along the trail that also house and feed the competitors during stopovers.
“I know the race wouldn’t be possible without all these village volunteers donating their time,” Jarvis Miller said. “It’s not one particular village—there’s a lot. If you’re at a checkpoint,Bi you get there and people open up their homes, there’s meals cooked, they treat you like family. It’s a cool experience to be a part of.”
The Expedition Class will start on Big Lake on Feb. 15 at 11 a.m.
The Pro Class starts on Feb. 17 at 10 a.m., also on Big Lake.