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Young racers fired up their snowmachines in Nome on Sunday for the first Mini Cannonball 200 and 600, youth versions of the annual adult Cannonball 150. The Bering Sea Lions Club hosted the inaugural event, where athletes as young as seven years old took to the course.
Mini Cannonball 200
It was a bright spring day on the frozen ice of the Nome Causeway. Twelve racers, ages 7 through 12, lined up for the first race. The riders lay on their backs behind their machines and waited for the start siren, a Nome race tradition known as the Le Mans start.
They sprinted to their snowmachines, fired up the engines and tore down the course—a roughly 6-mile loop they lapped three times for a total of 18 miles. It was an untimed race, so whoever made it across the finish line first won.
About 30 minutes later, 11-year-old Brayden Kody Brantley crossed the finish line in first place, with second- and third-place close behind.
Brantley said with his competitors on his tail, he pushed hard in the final stretch.
“I was like ‘bring me to first!’ to my snowmachine. But I know my snowmachine can't hear me,” Brantley said. “So I was getting excited a bunch, making sure that no one passed me. And it was just really fun the whole entire race.”
Brantley said he has been riding snowmachines for about four years. Before the race, he practiced by running the course in both directions.
His goal for the race was, as he put it, “making sure I don't crash and passing everybody.”
Mini Cannonball 600
Back at the starting line, the older group of 11 to 14-year-olds lined up for the longer and faster 600 class race.
Seven competitors took their marks behind their machines and launched into seven laps around the 6-mile loop, more than twice the distance of the first race.
Thirteen-year-old Jesse James Rowe was first across the finish line, becoming the first champion of the inaugural 600 race.
Rowe said he wasn’t very confident coming into the competition; he was riding a machine he said was a bit older and close to retirement, but the win was exciting.
“I was super glad,” Rowe said. “I was really nervous coming into this race because this is the first actual big race I've done with a big rig like that.”
Rowe held first place through the majority of the race, with second and third place flip-flopping positions close behind.
Rowe comes from a family of racers and has been riding snowmachines his whole life. He said he loves the adrenaline of racing, but he's also aware of the risks.
“This sport is really dangerous, you know, you can lose your life in a second, a blink of an eye,” Rowe said. “But also, I’m pretty glad because it's something to get you outdoors more, and it's a competitive sport.”
The event wrapped up with an awards ceremony, where the top three positions in each heat received check prizes. All 19 competitors left the ice with a medal in hand and a 2026 Mini Cannonball finisher title under their belts.
2026 Mini Cannonball Results 200 Class
2026 Mini Cannonball Results 600/65 HP Class
**CORRECTION: This article has been corrected to reflect that one lap on the course was six miles. A past version of this story incorrectly stated that one lap was 2 miles.**
