The big news for the Feb. 25 Iron Dog race update is the arrival of frontrunners, Tyler Aklestad and Nick Olstad, team 7, into Puntilla. They will be taking a mandatory 16 hour layover in Puntilla before heading off to finish the race the morning of Feb. 26. Race officials plan to let the race leaders depart just before 6 a.m.
Second position is held by Mike Morgan and Chris Olds, team 10, who checked into Puntilla at 3:29 p.m. They are on a 16-hour layover. Brad George and Robby Schachle, team 6 are in the third position. They checked into Puntilla at 3:30 p.m. Fourth position is held by Nomeites Jarvis Miller and Jordan Miller, team 23, having checked out of Nikolai at 2:05 p.m. Matt Piatt and Gregory Strohmeyer, team 22, hold the fifth position, checking out of Nikolai at 1:39 p.m.
The other Nome team still in the race is in 11th position. Father-son duo, Evan Booth and Steffen Booth, team 24, are on an eight-hour layover in McGrath as of 3:36 p.m.
Towards the bottom of the leaderboard is team 44, Kyle Krause and Ashley Wallace, who hold 12th position. Dillan Dohrn and Dustin Dohrn, team 29, are in the 13th position. Bret Bohn and Tommy Germany, team 15, hold position 14. Position 15 is held by Mark Nelson and Daniel Thomas. All four have checked out of Poorman. And in last position is Joseph Hale and David Wagner, team 11, who checked out of Ruby at 9:14 a.m. the morning of Feb. 25.
The Iron Dog race officials expect the winners to reach the finish line in Big Lake and Wasilla around noon Feb. 26.
Image at top: Tyler Aklestad and Nick Olstad of team 7 in the 2022 Iron Dog are the first team to arrive into Nome. Photo from Davis Hovey, KNOM (2022).
