Nome’s hometown team of Wilson Hoogendorn and Bubba McDaniel are sitting in seventh at the halfway point of 2025’s Iron Dog snowmachine race. The team is leading the field of all-rookie teams competing in this year’s event.
Hoogendorn said as the team cruised at an average speed of 61 mph from White Mountain to Nome familiar landmarks whizzed by.
“I was like, ‘all right, now we can really put our foot on the gas, push it pretty hard here’,” Hoogendorn said.
The 26-year-old said their familiarity with the region was an advantage, compared to the four other rookies still in the field.
“The blowholes gonna be windy, you know where the bumps are gonna be, you know it's pretty easy after Safety. Stuff like that. You just know what's coming,” Hoogendorn said.
The duo is back at home for the day before the race resumes Thursday. Iron Dog’s Executive Director, Mike Vasser, confirmed that despite snowless trail conditions on the way out to Nome, the route back will remain the same.
“No way to reroute around it,” Vasser said. “If you look at the course times from last year for the lead teams, it's only an hour and 30 minutes longer.”
One particular segment, the Farewell Burn, has caused trouble for competitors. McDaniel said the 60 mile stretch of bare tundra caused overheating issues, forcing the team to take long breaks for the engine to cool. He said the team has a plan in place to help curb the burn.
“We got something going on in McGrath right now that, hopefully it's gonna help us make better progress through the burn,” McDaniel said.
Despite their rookie status, the duo isn’t new to big adventures. Last spring, Hoogendorn walked over 100 miles from Nome to Shishmaref. He won last year’s Nome-Golovin snowmachine race too, earning a free entry to this year’s Iron Dog.
McDaniel has competed in snowmachine races since he was a kid. Last June, McDaniel and “Da Boiz” took home first in Nome’s annual River Raft Race. Both said competing in the Iron Dog has been a lifelong dream.
The soft-spoken teammates said their strategy for the 1,021 mile return trip is to keep their rigs clean and make it back to Big Lake safe.
“We're just gonna keep doing what we're doing and see where we end up,” McDaniel said. “Whatever we've been doing has been working so we'll just try to maintain.”
Iron Dog racers will return to the trail Thursday and are expected back in Big Lake Saturday.
