Seconds separate Iron Dog leaders

IRON DOG TRAIL - Six pairs of long-distance racers left Nome Thursday morning within 41 minutes, 55 seconds of each other while chasing Iron Dog front-runners and defending champions, Dusty Van Meter and Mark Carr.

After 1,009 miles of grueling trail that held racers over in McGrath for about 18 hours, only 12 seconds separated the first three teams at the Nome half-way point.

The second-place team of Nick Olstad and Marc McKenna and the third-place team of Dwayne Drake and Andy George were separated by just one second.

"With the caliber of racers that are in the lead, its going to be a very, very close race," Iron Dog executive director Stacey Grohol said. "The telltale indicator from here on out will be mechanical performance, but drivers are doing a phenomenal job."

Olstad is a Wasilla rookie who was a last-minute substitution for Tyler Aklestad of Palmer. McKenna's new teammate won the seventh-annual Intimidator 150 Larry Heal Memorial Cross-Country Race in Willow on Jan. 22.

Severe weather conditions threatened the race early on, but racers carved through eight-foot snow drifts near the Poorman checkpoint before hitting the west coast and moving on into Nome.

"They had a rough, tough time getting through there," Grohol said. "The racers are making an extremely valiant effort."

The Yamaha team of Warren Bumgarner and Mack Bergstedt made it to Nome about seven hours after the frontrunners. Teams left 24 hours behind the leaders are forced to scratch.

In his fifth Iron Dog, Bumgarner is trying to complete the entire race for the first time. Five of the starting 20 teams never made it to Nome and have scratched. Last year, only about half of the teams finished the race.

Since extra mandatory layover time was given to racers in McGrath, the mandatory layover time of 36 hours in Nome was adjusted to 22 hours, 19 minutes.

The top three racers to leave Nome were driving Arctic Cats, with three Polaris racers to follow.