First to Nome, and first to Fairbanks—the pair of Eric Quam and Scott Faeo rode to victory in the 2015 Iron Dog Saturday, arriving first at the finish line around 12:30 in the afternoon.
The Team 20 duo held their lead over the second-place team of Scott Davis and Aaron Bartel for more than 1,000 miles, since the Nome midway point. Davis—a seven-time race winner—was always between 20 and 40 minutes behind Quam and Faeo, but the lead never disappeared—even if there was a moment on the Yukon when they came close.
“I was a little nervous when you’ve got Scott Davis on your tail, you can’t ever back off the throttle, ” Quam told KTUU Channel 2 News at the Fairbanks finish. That nervous feeling came after the team pulled out of Ruby with an hour’s lead, which Faeo said nearby dissipated after the pair took a wrong turn on the way to Tanana.
“We were the first team up the river, we were breaking trail, and we kind of caught a detour,” Faeo said at the finish. “Everyone was telling us the Yukon was going to be different. So, we started going off on this trap line trail … and we went an extra ten miles up, ten miles back. That’s why we lost 30 minutes.”
Even with that lost time, the pair pulled into Fairbanks more than 45 minutes ahead of the Team 7 duo of Davis and Bartel, handily winning a race that this year had became notorious for it’s lack of snow cover and poor trail conditions that were difficult on machines.
Saturday’s win was Quam’s second Iron Dog win—he took first with team mate Marc McKenna in 2008—and Faeo’s first. Quam said this year’s race, and the win, was a deeply personal victory.
“I dedicate this race to the family members that we lost this year,” he said, echoing a sentiment he first shared at the Nome half-way point. “We lost my wife’s dad, Ted Wilson, my mom Carol Quam and my dad Jerry Quam. So it’s been a rough year on the family, so this race is dedicated to them,” Quam said, his voice filling with emotion. “And I’m really glad we were able to bring it in for ‘em.”
Faeo finished the race twice before, his first just two years ago in 2013, finishing an incredible rookie run alongside his brother, John Faeo Jr., that saw the duo lay claim various contingency prizes as one of the fastest rookie teams in the race. He placed 10th in last year’s race. With his first-place finish Saturday, Faeo becomes the race’s first second-generation champion—laying claim to the first potential Iron Dog dynasty—following seven first-place finishes by his father John Faeo in the years between the first race in 1984 and his last win in 1996.
Beating out his opponent Davis in this year’s race means the record for the most Iron Dog wins remains tied between the elder Faeo and Davis, a point of pride for the newest champion in the family at the finish line.
“It’s always a huge relief to get a win,” he told KTUU Channel 2 news reporters moments after crossing the finish line. “That feels good too, to put another Faeo win up there, and get ahead a little bit.”
On beating Davis to Fairbanks, he said the race felt “like my dad chasing me down … You’ve got to respect the guy, [Davis is] one of the greatest to ever do this race. So, defiantly a lot of respect for the guy, and we were very fortunate to get this win.”
Four teams with western Alaska roots finished Iron Dog this year. The McGrath brothers, Steffen and Robert Strick, took 9th place overall, while Galena’s Tyler Huntington rode to 10th racing with former champ Todd Palin. Bethel’s Steve Boney took 11th place with his Anchorage teammate Doug Dixon, and Nome’s Mike Morgan took 12th place with his Eagle River teammate Chris Olds.
Several other racers from Nome and Kotzebue also competed but scratched before the finish.
