Six Iron Dog teams are back on the clock, with the most recent being last year’s third place finishers – Casey Boylan and Bryan Leslie of team #14, who left Nome at 8:42am.
Before team #14 was reigning champions Mike Morgan of Nome and his racing partner Chris Olds who left at 8:06am in 5th position. The GPS shows that as of this update, these two are approximately 30 miles from White Mountain.
Even though first position Tyler Aklestad and Nick Olstad had about an hour and a half lead on the second position team of Brad George and Tyson Johnson, race requirements mandate that the restart gap between teams cannot exceed 45 minutes. So, George and Johnson left Nome at 7:45am this morning.
The frontrunners passed through White Mountain just before 8:40am and now head toward Golovin as they continue racing down the Eastern Norton Sound coast.
All 16 teams remaining in this year’s Iron Dog may have to be a little more cautious as they race the last 1,000 miles. The National Weather Service has issued a winter weather advisory for the Eastern Norton Sound, which calls for blowing and drifting snow, less than a mile of visibility, and 40mph winds on the trail ahead.
As the racers head out of Nome, they have to take one mandatory layover of 10 hours at any checkpoint between the restart point and Ruby.
Image at top: Racers approach Nome’s snow ramp in 2020 Iron Dog. Photo from Davis Hovey, KNOM (2020).
