Iron Dogs: Rookies, veterans prepare for 2,000-mile trek through Alaska wild

WASILLA — With only five days left until the start of the 2008 Tesoro Iron Dog, racers are gearing up to ride across the snow covered Alaska landscape.

From rookies to veterans, pro-class riders have spent weeks, months and even years preparing for Iron Dog 25 — a relentless ride that will take a select group of snow hounds through 2,000 miles of Alaska wilderness.

“It’s not a little country club ride by any means,” said Tyler Aklestad, a four-year Iron Dog veteran.

Aklestad and Tyson Johnson will leave the Big Lake starting line as the No. 8 team in their third year as an Alaska-based Iron Dog race team.

When it comes to preparing for a 2,000 snowmachine race, both Johnson and Aklestad said there are plenty of factors to consider. For this team, it begins with being in shape and doing lots of riding — something they admitted to be lacking this year.

In addition to being physically fit and race ready, the team said it’s key to be able to fix any mechanical problems on the trail.

“Knowing your sled and knowing how to wrench on it is pretty important,” said Johnson. “That’s probably the biggest thing. It’s pretty much guaranteed that you’re going to have some kind of problems along the way.”

Last year, with their sleds running a little off-kilter, the team ran out of gas and out of first-place contention. Despite falling behind a first-place pace, they dug deep to ride into a second-place finish.

Aklestad said it will take a well balanced bag of skills and tricks to reach the finish line up front.

“You got to be able to work on your sled, you have to be fast and there is a lot of luck honestly,” Aklestad said. “All that wrapped up into one is what’s going to make a winning team.”

On the other side of the Iron Dog race roster, Forest Fyrberg and Mark Paaso will head out into the Alaska wilderness as East Coast riders both in their rookie season. Fyrberg hails from Shelburne, N.H., and Paaso comes to Alaska from Bethel, Maine.

“We actually went looking for something like the Iron Dog,” Fyrberg said.

Fyrberg said he began riding snowmachines as a child, but the sport eventually gave to other interests like racing rally cars and ski racing. After years of a snowmachine hiatus, Fyrberg hopped back on snowmachine when his future teammate came home with a new ride.

After revisiting the snowmachine lifestyle they began looking for the ultimate snowmachine challenge.

“I saw the Iditarod and I was like that’s pretty cool I bet somebody’s doing that on sleds,” he said. “And sure enough I spent a night on Google, found this and started researching it.”

At the time Fyrberg was at Paaso’s house so he walked downstairs and said, “Dude guess what we’re doing.”

Fast forward to the cold winter month of February and the East Coast riders are in Alaska preparing for an Alaska-sized snowmachine race.

Rather than shipping sleds across the United States, Fyrberg said they decided to order two machines from Team CC — a local Ski-Doo dealership.

Although the team has experience riding snowmachines, the machines they will be riding for 2,000 miles across unknown territory are new to them.

“The first time I moved my sled with the throttle lever was this morning,” Paaso said. “The first time I saw it was last night, and the first time I’ve even stood on a XP was last night.”

With plane tickets, tons of gear and a cross-country flight, the team said they’ve invested a lot of time and money to make the trip the possible.

But with the help of local dealerships and sponsors that have provided trailers, garage space and other helpful amenities, they’ve been able to stretch their East Coast dollars.

Now, it’s just a matter of getting ready with a limited amount of time.

“Most of these guys have had their sleds all winter and they’ve got them all ready to go, but that thing is bone stock,” Fyrberg said as he pointed to his snow-

machine.

Although Alaska riders have had time to ride the trail and tweak their sleds, Fyrberg and Paaso are confident that their stamina and prior race experience will get them to the finish line.

The 2008 Tesoro Iron Dog pro-class festivities begin at 10 a.m. on Feb. 10. The race will begin at 11 a.m. on Big Lake.

Contact Chris Gillow at chris.gillow@frontiersman.com or 352-2284.