Iron Dog: Team 6 Morgan/Kishbaugh finishes fourth, Hoogendorn/McDaniel are rookies of the year

After a week of high speeds, high winds, and low snow in some places, the Iron Dog snowmachine race came to a close on Saturday. On February 22 Robby Schachle and Brad George crossed the finish line in Big Lake in first place, securing their second overall win. The first was in 2021.

Nome’s two remaining home teams did well. Veteran champion Mike Morgan and his partner Bradley Kishbaugh raced to fourth place, while Wilson Hoogendorn and Bubba McDaniel, rookies this year, came in sixth and earned Rookies of the Year honors.

“It felt good to cross the finish line, but even better to be the top rookie team,” said Hoogendorn. “It felt good to know we could hang with the leaders when we had the fastest split time from Kotz to Nome.”

At the finish line and in Nome, the rookies were met by cheering members of their families.

Asked if they would compete again in the future, Hoogendorn told the Nugget that he was “a little sore to think about it right now,” but they would see.

Morgan, competing in his sixteenth Iron Dog this year, said the race was “brutal.”

He told that Nugget that he and Kishbaugh had had the fastest split time in the first 1500 miles to Nome, and would have been the first to town, but had to accept outside help fueling when they ran out of fuel near Buckland. They took a forty-five-minute penalty for the help.

Kishbaugh and Morgan made good time on wrench day, mostly doing preventative work. They were the third team released from Nome but quickly ran into more trouble. They broke a driveshaft outside White Mountain, went into the water before Rohn, and ended the race with Morgan towing Kishbaugh to the finish after the latter’s tracks came apart.
“After all that, we’re satisfied with fourth but bummed because we had the speed to win the race,” said Morgan. Explaining both the speed and the breakdowns, Morgan added, “There’s only a couple of teams that are able to push the sleds as hard as we do.”

Hoogendorn and McDaniel had already won two awards before even leaving Nome. At the Halfway Ceremony and Banquet at the Mini Convention Center in Nome on Wednesday, the team won a prize for the fastest split time from White Mountain to Nome with at least one rookie on it, and a second prize for the fastest all-rookie team.

This year’s race was marked by low snow in some places, notably the Farewell Burn. While Iron Dog, unlike Iditarod, was not rerouted due to weather, the dramatic lack of snow in the Burn changed the race. As snowmachines use snow to keep their engines cool, teams were forced to stop over and over, with much longer split times than normal on that section. Morgan and Kishbaugh found a way to deal with it, picking up dustpans in Nome to shovel snow directly onto the track.

The Iron Doggers were released early from Nome on Thursday morning. The planned 10 a.m. release for the leaders was instead adjusted to 4 a.m., in part so that the teams would go through the Burn in the light.

Before that, racers, media, and fans crowded into Nome’s garage for Wrench Day. Working on the clock, the racers rushed to fix problems with their sleds and tried to prevent new ones from arising. While race teams are only two people, four people could work on a machine at a time, and several times, competitors pitched in to help one another. Team 20 and Team 14 essentially rebuilt their snowmachines completely, according to Iron Dog Executive Director Mike Vasser.

Citing the number of things Iron Dog racers have to focus on, from speed to fixing machines, Vasser said that Iron Dog racers are “the greatest athletes in the world, period.”

At the Halfway Banquet, Megan Onders, the Assistant City Manager, opened the ceremony by reading a poem written by ChatGPT, and welcomed people to the “Gold Rush City of Nome.” Iron Dog representatives thanked their supporters and gave out free helmets to kids in the audience.

Vasser, who is leaving his role as executive director after this year, laid out a vision for the future of Iron Dog which emphasized community programs like Helmet Safety Awareness for kids and Make It Run, which teaches high schoolers to do small engine and recreational vehicle repairs.
“The future of Iron Dog is to continue to develop these community support programs to enhance youth moving forward,” said Vasser. “And then I envision it as the race is the icing on the cake.”