'The Iron Dog is the World’s Longest, Toughest Snowmobile Race. It covers more than 2,500 miles as it traverses the Alaskan backcountry between February 15, 2025 - February 22, 2025.' Straight from the official Iron Dog website, the notable aspect of this is the very limited amount of...snow.
PC: Mike McCabe
Race fan Mike McCabe posted the above photo to give a representation of what the teams will encounter between the starting chute and the Susitna River, which is largely frozen ground and ice, which didn't hamper the support and participation in this 2025 running across the desolate Alaskan landscape. Here's this year's race broken down by the numbers:
Race Miles: 2,503
Teams: 30 (17 Polaris, 9 Ski-Doo, 4 Arctic Cat)
Rookie Teams: 9
Prior Champions: 6 - Brad George and Robbie Schachle (Team 20), Mike Morgan (Team 6), Tyler Aklestad (Team 7), and Cory Davis (Team 21), Tyson Johnson (Team 8)
Out-of-State Racing Teams: 11, From - New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Colorado, Nevada, and Puerto Rico
Women Pro-Class Racers: 3 - Hillarie Gossett, Ashley Wood, Danielle Levine (photo below of father/daughter Team 16 Danielle (Dani) with her father Larry.
The Iron Dog team put together a great graphic of just how far this race is, laid over the contiguous United States. Start in Missouri, up through Iowa, race well into the northern half of South Dakota, back down through Nebraska, cut through the tip of Kansas, and finish back in Missouri. To put that into perspective of time, last year the team of Cody Barber and Brett Lapham won the 40th Iron Dog snowmachine race with a course time of 52 hours, 36 minutes, 10 seconds.
The first portion of this race is largely 'training grounds' for much of these racers who live in the surrounding area who use the entire Susitna River basin for testing, tuning, and honing their skills months before the flag drops at the starting line. Before the Pro-Class leaves, the Ambassador class is given a much needed head-start and have already been reporting updates farther along the trail.
The Farewell Burn, a portion of the trail that is historically wrought with low snow has ratcheted up the difficulty yet again as the entire area is beyond windblown. What snow was there has evaporated and will present a huge challenge for every driver heading up the trail today. After showing this photo to my 15 year old Gen Z daughter her reply was 'Yo, they are all SO cooked!'. With her limited knowledge of Iron Dog racing, even she was able to parse together the fact that this egregious lack of snow will...present problems.
PC: Dan Thibault & Matt Spernak MP 213 (Tatina)
Ambassador Marc McKenna holds 4 Iron Dog Championships while Aaron Bartel has multiple podium finishes as well. Despite this pedigree, it took these teams 13 hours to motor from Puntilla Lake to Nikolai, roughly 144 miles. Comparing an Ambassador class to the Pro-Class racers is completely an apples/oranges comparison in man cases but when history records indicate racers can cover 339 miles in ~7.5 hours, teams will need to be very mindful of protecting their equipment.
Iditarod racer, Jessie Holmes, spoke of his dissatisfaction with the trail conditions in a post which also mentions a past Iron Dog racers breaking his collar bone on this trail. We are being told this was Marc McKenna in the Ambassador class as well.
The outlook isn't ALL bad as veteran racers Blake Elder and Kody Worley who are participating in the Alaska Safe Riders organization this year posted the above photo with the caption 'Just get to Ruby' with a bit of tongue-in-cheek encouragement to the Pro-Class teams that it'll get better...533 miles down the trail in Ruby.
Long-time Iron Dog 'Split Boss', Stan Brown, complies split-times between many of the checkpoints and after 218 racing miles, the spit at Tatina North showed that the top 7 teams through the checkpoint were all within 10 minutes of each other. This shows incredible speed and consistency across these professional racers. Keep in mind truing-up of the 2-minute release at the start will happen in McGrath, so the physical location of a team may not reflect their position on the leaderboard.
One often forgotten part of this race is the 'parts plane' that follows many of the teams carrying critical spares, replacements, and other equipment that the teams may need.
Pilot Jerry Jacques Loaded for Team 29
Robby Schachle and Brad George who left the starting chute in the 4th position have put a little spread on their pursuers (~17mi) according to the latest GPS pings around 4:45pm. Speeds in the single digits up through the low 20's across several pings show that this section of the trail is not conducive for breakneck speeds that we are used to seeing which are often double, or even triple what we have been seeing lately. After a few refreshes and searching the pack, I didn't see a posted speed on any team north of Tunis Mountain, around Farewell Mountain, and continuing northward through the burn above 25mph. It must be very tough out there and I can't imagine how they are keeping these machines cool let alone keeping a set of hyfax in shape.
Three teams chose to take a 2-hour layover at the Tatina checkpoint. The teams that chose to take a break included #29 Reggie Davis and Hayden Reid, #21 Cory Davis and Wes Selby, and #6 Brad Kishbaugh and Mike Morgan.
Word on Facebook is that teams were stopped for food, water, and at least some repair. Team 29 has suffered heat exchanger damage, which isn't surprising considering all the rocks they are dealing with. If they can't plug the heat exchanger hole, it may be a serious blow to their chances of continuing in the race. The other aspect of a rest could be strategy to allow others to 'break trail' through the upcoming terrible section of no snow through to Nikolai.
As of 6:25PM it appears that Team 20 has blown through the Nikolai checkpoint and has gained a massive jump in speed as they are in what we know as normal territory for these teams. This is likely indicative that they are running very clean, likely have no damage after that incredibly difficult low snow section, and could very well be firing on all cylinders, no pun intended. We will need to watch these guys closely as their lead is now stretched to more than 30 miles.
