Whiteout conditions delay Iron Dog restart in Nome

FAIRBANKS - The going got too tough even for even the world’s longest, toughest snowmachine race on Thursday.

The restart of the Iron Dog snowmachine race in Nome was postponed more than five hours Thursday morning because of whiteout conditions that reduced visibility to zero and all 15 teams remaining in the race were placed under a yellow caution flag for the first 263 miles to Unalakleet.

Race officials made the decision to put the race under a yellow flag to Unalakleet for safety reasons, race director Kevin Kastner said.

Racers were being split into five groups, each consisting of three two-man teams, to help break the trail to Unalakleet.

“Their job is to work together and get there as a team,” Kastner said.

The 2,031-mile race from Big Lake to Nome to Fairbanks was originally scheduled to restart in Nome on Thursday at 8 a.m.

Once they reach Unalakleet, racers will be released on their actual trails times and the official race clock will begin ticking.

“Based on the conditions we’re estimating it will take them at least eight hours to get to Unalakleet, which is normally a five-hour ride,” Kastner said.

Racers will take a mandatory 10-hour layover in Unalakleet and the race will be restarted using teams’ trail times from Nome.

How the delayed start and yellow flag will impact the scheduled finish on the Chena River in downtown Fairbanks on Saturday remains to be seen, especially since the National Weather Service in Fairbanks issued a winter storm watch starting Thursday that calls for 4 to 8 inches of snow to fall by Friday night. That’s on top of the foot and a half of snow that fell Sunday and Monday.

“We’ve got our fingers crossed (for a Saturday finish in Fairbanks) but based on what I’ve been hearing about the trails on that side I don’t know,” Kastner said.

The race is usually stopped when racers hit the village of Tanana, 414 miles from the finish, on Friday afternoon and then restarts on Saturday morning to ensure a predictable afternoon finish.

With a later restart in Nome, the yellow flag to Unalakleet and slow going expected on the Yukon and Tanana rivers because of the snow, racers may not make it to Tanana in time for a Saturday finish.

“We’ll send them on their way and see how they do and get to Fairbanks and deal with the snow there,” Kastner said.

One option race officials are considering to get teams to Tanana quicker is to eliminate the 10-hour layover teams are required to take on the Yukon River.

“We may remove the second 10-hour layover to get them to Tanana,” Kastner said.

When the race clock does start ticking again, leaders Marc McKenna and Dusty Van Meter will have a 11 minute, 7 second lead on defending champs Tyler Huntington of Fairbanks and Chris Olds of Eagle River, who arrived in Nome in third place but jumped into second place because they spent less time working on their machines than the team of Todd Palin and Eric Quam, who were second into Nome.

Huntington and Olds, who trailed Palin and Quam by just 58 seconds coming into Nome, spent 9 minutes, 21 seconds working on their Polaris 600s while Palin and Quam did 23 minutes, 39 seconds of work on their machines. McKenna and Van Meter needed only 2 minutes, 29 seconds of repair time.

Palin and Quam now trail McKenna and Van Meter by 24 minutes, 27 seconds.

The fourth-place team of seven-time champ Scott Davis and his rookie son, Cory, who trailed the leaders by 22 minutes, 58 seconds coming into Nome, spent 6 minutes, 45 seconds working on their sleds and now trail McKenna and Van Meter by 27 minutes, 14 seconds.

Two of the 17 teams remaining in the race — Stacey Green and Cliff Johnson, both of Nome, and Jeremiah Jones of Denver and Robbie Muir of Anchorage — never even made it to Nome. They were stuck in Elim, having been caught by the storm on Wednesday. It was unclear whether they would join racers as they headed south to Unalakleet on Thursday or continue on to Nome.