All 21 teams have arrived to Nome, the mid-way point in the 2017 Iron Dog snowmachine race. Now, each of the teams has scheduled time to make necessary repairs to their machines before the race continues at 8am tomorrow morning.
Race Marshal Nate Perkins says that the teams can’t have outside help making repairs and that welders or grinders can’t be used, but other than that, the possibilities are limitless.
“They’ve already done their inspections, (for) which we have an inspection time, that every team gets to get 15 minutes with no penalty to inspect their machines to see if it needs any maintenance. And then once they determine what they might need, they schedule with us to do their actual repairs; at that point, it’s kind of unlimited how much time they need, but they are on the clock, meaning any time they take to work on their machines is added to their elapsed course time,” explained Perkins.
Team #14 of Bryan Leslie and Casey Boylan are both rookies in this year’s Iron Dog. Leslie, an Anchorage local, says they were turned around briefly near Elim and sustained some damage to their machines outside of Nome, but the real damage was to his hand.
Leslie: “So, first day, I had the finger on the brake, and it ended up going numb, and I didn’t notice, so I got frostbite pretty bad. So, the whole tip of my finger is a big blister and purple, so I’m trying to keep that warm for the rest of the way, to Fairbanks at least.”
KNOM: “And you’ll get the feeling and the mobility back in your finger?”
Leslie: “I hope so; I can feel it now: it’s tender and stuff, but as long as it doesn’t change colors much, we should be good.” [laughs]
Leslie and Boylan currently sit in ninth position as they await tomorrow’s race restart from Nome.
At the bottom of the leaderboard and the last team to arrive in Nome is team #32: Dave Hausbeck and Rob Cleary. Perkins says both of the Michigan natives will still have scheduled time to make repairs if they choose.
“They were on a real extend layover at Koyuk because they actually had mechanical problems, and I know they did some work, and I know they need more parts when they get to Nome to be able to continue. So, it’s kind of going to be up to them once they get here to determine whether they got time to get fixed. We don’t try to encourage them to stop,” said Perkins. “If they really wish to finish the race, then we want to try to help everybody, you know, reach that goal.”
Before the race restart tomorrow morning, racers will participate in tonight’s Iron Dog banquet at the Nome Rec Center at 6pm. Todd Minnick and Nick Olstad will also receive the $10,000 Gold Rush prize during that time.
