Iron Dog race delayed

GENE JANSEN/Frontiersman staff

IRON DOG TRAIL - Severe weather caused Iron Dog officials to postpone the world's longest and toughest snowmachine race until bad trail conditions can be upgraded.

"The decision has been made to put the race on hold for 12 hours due to sever trail conditions from Poorman to Ruby," Iron Dog executive director Stacey Grohol said yesterday. "Most of the racers will probably spend 18 hours in McGrath."

Volunteer trail breaker teams headed out Monday to see if any progress could be made to alleviate the poor trail conditions.

"There are eight-foot drifts on the trail to Poorman," Grohol said. "Checker teams are going to get trail broken. I have just been told that is still blowing and snowing in Kaltag."

Todd Palin, a former champion from Wasilla, and his teammate, Scott Davis, entered McGrath in second place, 18 minutes behind front-runners Marc McKenna and Nick Olstad, who is running his first Iron Dog. McKenna and Olstad arrived at 9:02 p.m. Sunday.

While in McGrath, trail officials tacked on a mandatory 12-hour layover because of the trail conditions. This time will be deducted from their mandatory 36-hour layover in Nome.

The minimum racer-declared layover in McGrath is six hours, so the first racer will not be eligible to leave McGrath until Monday at 3:02 p.m.

Andy George of Wasilla and Dwayne Drake arrived in McGrath just four minutes after Palin and Drake. As of press time Monday, the only team to scratch was the rookie team of Larry Kropp and

Skeet Black.