Wow, what a race. This year's Tesoro Iron Dog Snowmobile Race will go down in history with one particular word, SNOW.

The young, up-and-coming team of Marc McKenna and Nick Olstad were able to stave off the host of previous and most experienced Iron Dog winner's to win the 2000-mile race back and forth across the last frontier of Alaska . Up and over 3 mountain ranges and back, team #14 crossed the finish line with a running time of 52:59:40 setting a new course record for this route. Followed by the team of Scott Davis and Todd Palin who crossed only 20 minutes ahead of the third place team of Kenny Kleewein and Randy Hunter.

This year, the start of the race posted an overcast morning with light snow, which soon turned into a raging blizzard temporarily halting the race and holding the racer's in McGrath, 341 miles up the trail towards Nome . After the trail and conditions were deemed safe, the race resumed 14 hours later. Of the 20 teams that left Big Lake for the start, only 13 would come home to cross the finish line . Two teams would fail to return to Big Lake due to mechanical failures, two teams due to illness, one to a crashed sled, one to a broken wrist, and one that just had enough “fun” at the half way mark after they encountered an un-navigable ground storm and retuned to Nome .

Our rookie team of Skeet Black and Larry Kropp unfortunately succumbed to be one of the teams out due to illness, and as the first team to scratch in the race, had quite the adventure………or was it quite the survival story? You can decide. After all the months of preparation, training, getting into top physical shape, and spending a yearly income for some, their story goes to show how just riding on a snowmachine in a race of this grandeur, is only one piece of racing in the Tesoro Iron Dog.

The night before the race, Larry and Skeet drew starting position #10 at the start drawing banquet at the Best Western Lake Lucille . A nice mid way start of the 20 teams in which ALL teams felt a little extra aggressiveness as the most winningest racer, John Faeo and his partner Todd Minnick drew starting position number one! So each team knew they would have to ride hard to ever expect to pass those guys! On race morning, both Larry and Skeet showed up pumped and ready with the typical butterflies we all get on any world-class type endeavor. Their machines ready to roll and families ready to send them off for the trip of 2000 miles to Nome and back.

There had been a couple of changes of plan since our first story printed about Larry and Skeet. Both of which, personal rider safety played a big part. First, the guys changed their minds regarding the heated snow gear. The suits were thinner than normal riding gear and neither Skeet nor Larry felt comfortable being out in the middle of nowhere and having to depend on 12-volt power to keep warm. And secondly, remember the full-face modular helmet that they hoped would protect their faces from the freezing temperatures? Well, the weekend before the race, they both nipped themselves with patches of frostbite where the wind in 15 below zero temperatures at 80 mile per hour speeds leaked in, around, and through what ever openings the helmets had. So back to the good old standby - duct tape on the face to prevent frostbite!

The start of the race was spectacular as always. The teams of two racer's screaming out of the starting gate which this year donned a Red Bull inflatable arch. Tracks spinning and snow flying, the crowds cheered and families prayed for safe returns back to Big Lake . Each team is required to carry certain survival gear and all these guys know what lay ahead of them, but little did Skeet and Larry know, their race was going to turn into more of an endeavor than an adventure.

It was lightly snowing at the starting line and 5 degrees which was a great pleasure instead of what could have been the –10 degrees the racer's all encountered the morning before at the tech inspection. They blasted off for the first check point of Skwentna, 82 miles up the trail. From the Big Lake start, the trail goes west a couple of miles onto the Big Susitna River , then north and onto the Yentna River to the Skwentna River , and into the Skwentna Roadhouse. A quick gas fill up, and a two-minute stretch, and the racers are off to the next checkpoint at Shell Lake. Remembering that Skeet and Larry knew that this was going to be a tremendous adventure more than a quest to win the Iron Dog, they were still in awe as some of the favored teams like Ken Lee and Tracey Broussard, literally FLEW by them on the wide expanse of the Big Su. And, flew by riding in the sitting position.

“We trained for months and those guys are such amazing athletes,” Skeet said. “Even the above-average or even exceptional rider has no idea how these guys ride”.

Larry commented on how he was needing to ride semi-standing up to allow his legs to take the shock of the wide open throttle riding on a very “well traveled” Big Susitna River . This is exactly what led to the demise of our team bib number 9, Larry and Skeet. Big Lake is the largest recreation area in the state, and the Big Su and Yentna are the river highway's leading to a vast number of cabins and lodges. There are recreation cabins, trapper cabins, full time residents, and lodges scattered all up and down, off, and along these rivers. So trails are EVERYWHERE.

With McKenna and Olstad having the fastest time of 1 hour and 8 minutes to Skwentna, Larry and Skeet's first mishap was as Larry said, ”was getting stuck on something really stupid”. While leaving the Skwentna River pulling up into the check point of the Skwentna Roadhouse, the 8 foot river bank that had been commandeered by plenty of teams in front of the guys, ended up being a “do over”. Instead of squaring up and hitting the bank at a 90 degree angle, the trail was wide enough that Larry attacked it a little crossways, caught a ski, and dumped off the side of the trail into four feet of powder straddling a spruce tree. The boys spent 20 minutes digging out the Ski-Doo but with only a couple of hours into a 2,000 mile race, there was nothing but an “oh well” and into the checkpoint they went. They topped off with gas, asked which way out and back onto the trail, and off they went.

It was starting to snow now pretty good, and the high speed jarring of the river riding made it tough to read the GPS (Global Positioning System) which would guide them from programmed point to point. They were wired with a remote communication system, which turned out to not be the “perfect” set up, but was adequate. Skeet asked Larry how they looked on the GPS, and Skeet replied they were on the trail. But after a few miles, Skeet recognized a lodge, they were going back down the trail the way that they had come. They stopped together, looked at the GPS, and verified that they were on the trail, but going the wrong way. So a nice lesson again early in the race for them, that reading the GPS while riding could be difficult. So back to Skwentna and better directions, still trying to shake the nerves of the trip ahead, Larry and Skeet are off again.

The guys have a great ride on the way to the next stop at Shell Lake which is a little east of the Skwentna River . They verify the GPS during this leg of the race always seeing that they are getting closer. Things going so well, they are getting into the rhythm, when the GPS now says they are getting farther away from Shell Lake . Bad sign. That means that the trail that they are on, is paralleling the correct trail and they have gone past the checkpoint. They get to a point where they are three miles perpendicular to the checkpoint. They are right in the type of conditions they really trained for. They chose to ride 136” long tracks and the four feet of powder on a three mile cross-country was not even a deterrent. THEY WERE NOT GOING BACK TO SKWENTA.

Their ego's were now getting a little taxed and they pushed cross country. They got within a mile and a half zigging and zagging and could just not find a way to the GPS coordinate when they came upon a cabin with a light on. They stopped, and Bob, the sole occupant, after eyeing the boys to verify that they were Iron Dog racer's, said,……….you guessed it, “you're not going to get over that ridge to Shell Lake , you'll have to go back to Skwentna to catch the right trail”. Wow, now the boys are starting to not have a good first day of racing. They have some choice racer words in their own personal heated conversations about what is happening and they head back to Skwentna. They have just traveled another trail that is just like the spokes on a wheel all starting at the same point but leading out in different directions. The trip back provides them with three moose on the trail with the four feet of powder on each side.

Now moose are not entirely the lanky, 10 foot at the head, dumb creatures that they look like. They don't want to walk in the powder any more than a racer wants to plow through it, so for 45 minutes, Larry has a little comedy watching Skeet yell, go backwards on the trail so his reverse bell dings, waving arms, anything to get the dang moose off the trail. You can only push one so hard and there have been many a trampled snowmachiner or dog sledder that have been on the business end of a moose hoof.

So now 9 hours into the race, the boys get a bite to eat in Skwentna. Larry had gotten sweaty as he had dressed a little too warm, and his camelback tip went awry and leaked so was pretty wet. They made a call on the satellite phone that they had to check in with race headquarters (the boys were very prepared with gear) to let them know of their plight. Unfortunately, since they had gassed and checked out of Skwentna earlier in the day, one of the rules states that you cannot layover in a checkpoint that you have already checked out of. And Shell Lake is not a layover checkpoint, so they would need to make Puntilla Lake 65 miles up the trail. So they either stayed on the clock here or in Shell Lake , or they pushed to Puntilla.

Now it is dark and snowy. But one of the bright sides (no pun here) is that the trail is marked with reflective markers, and their LEAD-DOG Helmet Lights (http://www.helmetlight.com) were able to pick out the reflectors where in the day light, anyone and everyone with a cabin would have trail markers to their cabin or lodge so the proper trail was harder to identify. They checked into Shell Lake no problem, gassed up, and headed for Puntilla Lake , which was only 33 miles ahead. At 13 hours Larry thinks to himself that he is not really feeling too good, but after what they have been through, he doesn't think that he SHOULD be feeling too good! Where Skeet is right in his zone. He is pleased with how he is feeling and thinks to himself how all the training is paying off for him. But he does notice that he has to wait for Larry a little more often.

They know they are getting to the most notoriously technical part of the trail, “The Steps”. This section of the trail is where it climbs out of the Susitna River Valley and up into the Alaska Range. Each and every year, The Steps entertains many a team and it is not uncommon for teams to help each other out here to get up and into Ptarmigan Pass on their way to Puntilla Lake. Skeet knows it's late, it's around 2:00 in the morning, and with his long time Alaskan history, there is probably a trail team going to be looking for them, as low and behold a headlight begins to appear up ahead. As the machines meet, and they cut off the motors, they greet, and Skeet asks the rider if he is looking for them. The rider in his Alaskan wit, says “no, I'm going on a beer run”. They have a laugh, and the company says they are about two miles from The Steps. Larry had taken a swig of water and got a little light headed and said he need to lie down for a minute. A second trailbreaker shows up and joins in the greeting and conversation. Wolves are howling in the distance and the second trail breaker says “he ain't right” talking about Larry laying there on the ground, it was then that Skeet really started to realize that Larry was sick. And with him lying there and cooling off, started to be concerned about hypothermia.

Now it is time for a big decision. They have already crossed an ice bridge that was only as wide as the snowmachine's track, had faced wrong trails, run into moose, and now Larry was sick. They had those obstacles in back of them that they knew and could go back through. They had still never encountered The Steps, and with the trail rider's input, decided that they were turning around and going back to Shell Lake for the night. Larry was too sick to continue into the unknown, in the dark, in the storm. They made it back over the ice bridge with no problems. At one point though, Larry laid his machine over and could not get up. Skeet came up to him and just tipped the sled back on its track and asked Larry what he had hit. Not only could Larry not tell him, but also Skeet could not see anything in the trail. Skeet did not want to spend anymore time out in the dark night than they needed and the wolf's howling, while not a threat, just added to the eeriness. They have now been riding for 15 ½ hours and Skeet knows the trail to Shell Lake is supposed to be in the immediate area. He is getting punchy and has some very bad words to say about the predicament he is in, and that now he has a serious concern for Larry, AND he can't find the damn trail to Shell.

“I was tired of screwing around in the dark looking for the trail,” Skeet said. They had stopped and he was going to look for the trail as the power cord for the GPS on Larry's machine had been ripped out by a tree branch. If he did not find the trail soon, he was ready to pitch the tent and them to stay there. Larry just sat in the dark watching Skeet's machine and LEAD-DOG Helmet Light bob through the woods first from the left, then turn and go to the right, and then back again. Larry compared watching Skeet go back and forth to that of watching a tennis match. He laughs about it now.

It's now four or five in the morning and it's time to make another call on the satellite phone to Race Headquarters. If they could have someone from the checkpoint come and get them and any light would show up in the darkness fairly easy. Since the satellite phone buttons are not lit up like cell phone numbers are, and the engine noise makes hearing the phone impossible, the LEAD-DOG Helmet Light “performed super” to the task. They had wired their Lights to run either off the machines lighting system, or off the machines battery in case the engine was not running. A huge asset for their situation. Larry and Skeet ended up being only one quarter of a mile from Shell Lake. One quarter of a mile from food, heat, and sleep. Their cool heads and outdoorsmanship proved to conquer the worst situations that the wild Alaskan outdoors could throw at them.

The call to Race Headquarters revealed that the race had been temporarily put on hold and the leaders held up in McGrath due to the snowstorm. Skeet figured that they could get to Puntilla Lake in the light and take a layover, Larry said no. Skeet concurred. So after some fair sleep, four or five hours, and a little breakfast, VERY little for Larry, they headed to………..Skwentna.

Skeet said,” it was an absolute white out and there was lots of new powder”.

At one point, both machines got stuck and Larry told the story of Skeet swimming 30 feet between the machines in snow up to his neck. The ride was so snowy and white out conditions that there were times you just closed your eyes because it did not matter if they were open or not.

Skeet said, “I had my Helmet Light on and it helped to see the trail outline when a turn came up”. The ride to Skwentna was enough of a ride for Larry that day. They decided to stay there and rest and relax. The following day turned out a beautiful blue day with two to three feet of powder and the ride back to Big Lake was fun. They had been through a few rough days and to be able to finish this journey, even though a little sooner than planned, the final miles were of the snow conditions that we all long for.

All and all, Larry and Skeet fulfilled a tremendous adventure. Not the adventure that they had set out for, and surely not the adventure that they care to do again. But to see that when you are prepared, by keeping a cool and collected head, and making the right decisions when there is a lot riding on your decisions, everything will turn out alright. Mishaps can happen to anyone, anyone can make mistakes, and sometimes a couple in a row can get you into trouble. By not panicking and thinking the situation out, we have the opportunity to go back and try again.

They did not say they would race next year, but they did not say that they wouldn't either. Since that Valentine's Day weekend, they have ridden both weekends and last weekend were able to enjoy “tons of powder” in exactly what they had hoped to encounter on the Iron Dog.

So, if you think you have what it takes to run the Tesoro Iron Dog, check out http://www.irondog.org and come sign up. Even if you are not the hard-core racer, there is the trail class that would be the experience of a lifetime to ride the Iron Dog Trail. It's not too soon to start preparing for next year!