Iron Dog 2025: Wrench day sees riders prepare to head back down the trail

NOME, Alaska (KTUU) - After traveling nearly 1,500 miles, the Iron Dog trail has done a number on both riders and their machines.

Lucky for the teams, that’s what “Wrench Day” is for.

Conducted at the Nome checkpoint, teams are taking the opportunity to fix and replace parts that have or could break later on down the course.

For each pair, it’s imperative they move quickly. All time spent twisting screwdrivers and tightening bolts is tracked and later added to their final race time.

Some teams come into the day with little to worry about. Team 26’s Hillarie and Tim Gossett spent a total of 16 minutes working on their sleds, performing preventative maintenance, and tweaking bits and bobs.

“We changed belts. Found a loose spark plug and changed that. Changed some torsion springs just so we don’t have to deal with that on the trail,” Tim Gossett said.

“I had a broken clutch spring, which tends to happen, so I changed that real quick. Sixteen minutes of wrenching that would have been an hour on the trail.”

Others had more work to do and needed more time to invest in their machines.

“We’re having a little bit of issue with some fades, fade in the rear skid shock,” Tyler Gurley of Team 24 said.

“It was a little rough on the way in and it’s gonna be rough on the way home so ... [we’ll] take a little bit more time here and ... our backs will thank us at the finish line,” Gurley’s teammate Collin Clayton said.

Once teams leave Nome on Thursday, they’ll have 1,021 miles to go to the finish line in Big Lake.

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