Weather forces race into holding pattern

NOME — As Iron Dog teams try to leave the checkpoint that marks the halfway stage of the 2,000-mile race, Mother Nature is in the lead.

Beginning with windy and blustery conditions Tuesday night as teams began making their way into the Nome checkpoint, blowing snow and water has wreaked havoc on the race, forcing organizers to put the Iron Dog on hold.

Jim Wilke is vice president of the Iron Dog board of directors and said from Nome Thursday evening that the race is under a yellow flag until teams can make their way to the Unalakleet checkpoint for a re-start.

“We’re just a little ways outside of Nome, at the western edge,” he said. “It’s really nasty out here, it’s blowing really hard. No airplanes of any kind are flying. Weather conditions southeast of here are pretty poor.”

The latest blog on the Iron Dog website, irondograce.org, said that some of the teams who are moving out of Nome “have been slogging for four hours” to make the drive to Golovin, which is usually a 90-minutie jaunt. In the Golovin area, snow is “easily more than 7 feet” deep, the blog says.

In addition to the deep snow, strong winds are blowing water from rivers, Norton Sound and Norton Bay and icing up the trail, Wilke said.

“Those southeast winds have driven all sorts of water up onto the ice, and you have open water and it really makes it treacherous in the dark,” he said. “The trail’s been blown shut for a couple of days.”

Of the 28 teams that started the Iron Dog, 14 are still in the running, Wilke said.

“Of the ones that have crashed this year, the trail has been so tough with so much snow, some of these guys are just flat getting worn out,” he said. “I don’t know that we’ve had many mechanical scratches, but this year it’s a lot of rider injuries and being just plain worn out.”

With the teams being held over, the times into Nome are the latest official marks, and not much more than an hour separates the first eight teams, Wilke said.

The team of Anchorage resident Marc McKenna and Dustin Van Meter of Kasilof is in the lead at the Nome checkpoint, followed by Tyler Huntington and Chris Olds in second place. The Valley team of former Iron Dog champ Todd Palin and Palmer resident Eric Quam was the first to leave the McGrath checkpoint Monday morning, but will restart in Unalakleet in third place.

Because of the weather slowing down some of the faster teams and the yellow flag, Wilke expects the final push “is going to be a shoot-out for the next three days.”

He also expects the previously planned party for the finishers in Fairbanks set for Saturday will have to be postponed.

“I’m almost certain of that at this point,” he said. “I can’t see any way we can finish anytime sooner than fairly late Sunday afternoon.”

For updates and up-to-the-minute GPS tracking of Iron Dog racers, visit irondograce.org.

Contact Greg Johnson at greg.johnson@frontiersman.com or 352-2269.