Teams 14 and 39 leave Kotzebue in a tight race for second
Team 14 checked in and out of Buckland quickly on Sunday to arrive in Kotzebue before 3 p.m. They depart this morning at 7:44 a.m. Allen Jones photo
The front of the Iron Dog race pack leaves Kotzebue beginning at 7 a.m. this morning, and all eyes are on the top three teams. Team 7 Tyler Aklestad and Nick Olstad hold a 27-minute lead over Team 14 Casey Boylan and Bryan Leslie, and Team 14 holds just a 17-minute lead over third-place racers Team 39 Cody Barber and Brett Lapham.
As Boylan said, though, the race is not nearly over.
“We are only 1,000 miles into a 2,600-mile race and we’ve already been though some of the roughest terrain,” Boylan said. “Really, we just have to get to Nome clean, in one piece. When we get there, we need to make sure our sleds are 100, 100 percent.”
Team 39’s Cody Barber fuels up out of Kaltag. Trinity Viveiros photo
The race for second and third place is heating up, and the quest to shave minutes off their course times must be balanced with restraint in conditions that can prove unpredictable.
“Things are going good,” said Team 39’s Brett Lapham, who is racing with his brother-in-law Cody Barber. “We are moving right along, and our sleds are in good shape. I’m looking forward to getting to Nome tomorrow.
Like Boylan said, Lapham said this part of the race is about keeping machines in good shape and getting enough rest for the long race back.
“They’ve been in front of us for the most part, and we’ve sat waiting at the fuel pumps by them,” Lapham said of Team 14. “But now we are just trying to manage our time, but not really trying to hunt them down and pass them at this moment. We have a lot of race left.”
Boylan said Nome is a good reset, when everyone can have a look at their sleds and doublecheck that everything is in order.
“What you really want to have is a maintenance-free ride, and that’s tough in these conditions,” Boylan said. “And making sure that you’re fresh – if you have to stop to take a break, do it. It could help you out. Yeah, it’s going to shorten your overall time of sleep, but it’s keeping you together.”
On Sunday, Boylan said he intended to get plenty of rest. The first two days of the trail were rough, he said, and Sunday offered better conditions and visibility.
Team 39’s Brett Lapham fueling up at Kaltag. Trinity Viveiros photo
“I wear a Garmin watch and it showed I burned 7,064 calories (Saturday),” he said Sunday evening. “Today, I burned 4,500. After two back-to-back 7,000 calorie days, today felt good.”
Lapham said he and Barber plan to ride as cautiously as they can in the conditions and shave time whenever they see a safe window of opportunity. This approach has etched the top three teams into a cluster of competition.
“The gaps between the teams are starting to get a little bit bigger, but at this point there is still a lot of race left,” he said. “You have to keep your sled in great shape, and as of right now, there is nothing major that we have to do to ours.”
Team 14 is scheduled to depart Kotzebue at 7:27 a.m., and Team 39 follows at 7:44 a.m. Conditions are said to be fast from Unalakleet all the way to Nome, but poor weather and low visibility was predicted to be moving into the area.
“If we can see, hopefully we can make good time,” Lapham added.
Team 14’s Casey Boylan checks his sled during a refuel at the Kaltag checkpoint. Trinity Viveiros photo.
At the back of the race, the Iron Dog race field winnowed from 18 teams to 15 on Sunday, as three more teams suffered insurmountable mechanical problems. Perennial front-runners Team 10 Chris Olds and Mike Morgan struggled with mechanical problems earlier in the race, and after attempting to making repairs in Ruby, didn’t get much further down the trail until trouble started again. They eventually had to call it quits at the Galena checkpoint.
Team 30 Blake Elder and Kody Worley and Team 3 Kruz and Kenneth Kleewein scratched after Unalakleet. Kenneth Kleewein took a spill between Shaktoolik and Koyuk and hurt his arm; the two made it back to Unalakleet. Team 30 blew a torsion spring first on Elder’s machine, which they fixed, but then Worley’s also had one fail just a few hours later. When Worley’s pinged, it also punctured the heat exchanger, bringing their race to a halt.