Team 7 Aklestad, Olstad capture back-to-back Iron Dog titles
Your 2023 Iron Dog champions are Tyler Aklestad and Nick Olstad from Team 7.
After a week where poor weather and low visibility plagued racers across the competitive field, Saturday’s puffy clouds lifted just in time to deliver bluebird skies for the Big Lake finish. Team 7 crossed the finish at just after noon to capture what is Aklestad’s fourth victory and Olstad’s sixth. As they came into the finish chute, Olstad’s children Jackson and Kaia, and Aklestad’s sons Liam and Finn, waved the checkered flag to signal their arrival.
“This is the nicest day of the ride so far,” quipped Olstad when greeted at the finish.
“It was a great race,” said Aklestad. “We stuck to our plan and honestly we never had to push it. … Overall, it was an amazing race.
Aklestad and Olstad have partnered together since 2020, winning three of their last four races together. In 2021, they scratched after a mechanical knocked them out of the race at Unalakleet.
Second-place finishers Team 14 Casey Boylan and Brian Leslie had a near flawless race to capture a spot on the podium – and a $40,000 cash prize. They crossed the line at 12:41 p.m., just 36 minutes behind Team 7. It was a much better ending than their 2022 race, when Leslie took a hard get-off after hitting a rough patch on the trail and ending up in the hospital. While he suffered no broken bones, it was the end of their race, and they scratched in Nome.
“It was a good race,” Boylan said Saturday as he collected his thoughts at the finish. “We had some good strong points and some places we learned a little too. We have two running sleds, and it was a maintenance-free ride, which is what you really need to be competitive.”
Rounding out the podium, Team 39 Cody Barber and Brett Lapham came in third, at 1:04 p.m. and 23 minutes back from Team 14. These Top 3 were not unexpected. The frontrunners kept similar gaps between each other ever since their restart in Nome on Feb. 22.
As of 3:30 p.m. Saturday, 11 of the 15 remaining teams were across the finish line. The top-placing all-rookie team, Travis Temple and Chad Moore of Team 19, arrived just before 3 p.m., followed less than 10 minutes later by fellow all-rookie Team 16 Ashley Wood and Hillarie Gossett. They are the only two all-rookie teams to complete the 2023 race. Hillarie Gossett and Ashley Wood becoming the second team of all women to finish the Iron Dog Race and the only with the inclusion of the Red Dog Loop.
Tonight’s Iron Dog Awards Ceremony, Hall of Fame Banquet and Raffle Drawing takes place at 7:30 p.m. at the Curtis D Menard Memorial Sports Center, 1001 S. Clapp St., in Wasilla.