Iron Dog 2024: Team 39 first to Nome in compact race to halfway point

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - Team 39 — the duo of Cody Barber and Brett Lapham — are no strangers to the Iron Dog, competitors since 2015. They are also no strangers to each other, running their fourth Iron Dog together as a tandem.

However, the Willow duo are strangers to being the top team to ride under the inflatable arch in Nome.

”It’s a first for us to be here first, so it’s pretty awesome,” Lapham said.

“Yeah, it has been a long time coming,” Barber added. “I feel really good. Body feels pretty sore, but a little rest will take care of that.”

Team 39 was the first to arrive at the eagerly-anticipated Nome garage Tuesday evening, and it couldn’t come soon enough, with high winds, low visibility, and whiteout conditions impacting the past 48 hours in Western Alaska.

“Just trying to follow and see where to go, it’s been pretty difficult the last couple of days,” Lapham said in the garage.

“The trail conditions are much better than in years previous, but the weather is definitely worse,” Barber chimed in.

In terms of course time, Team 14 of Casey Boylin and Bryan Leslie are 20 minutes behind the leaders, while Team 3 — Evan Barber and Troy Conlon — are less than an hour behind Team 39 as the remaining teams in Iron Dog 2024 look to reach the halfway point with their machines, and themselves, in one piece.

The Team 3 tandem of Kyle Conner and Andy Gocke clocked into Nome in seventh place, but may have had better positioning had they not experienced a hiccup about 150 miles from Nome.

”My windshield — I hit a reflective post at about 85 [miles per hour]” Conner said. “I should’ve zagged when I zigged, and I smoked it.”

As Conner reflected on the incident, he realized he wasn’t even necessarily supposed to be in the race.

”His partner Kenny Kleewein got hurt three weeks ago, so I stepped in,” Conner said.

Asked if he had any intentions of running this year, Conner’s quip was quick.

“I still don’t,” Conner said with a laugh.

In another garage stall, it was “Welcome to the Iron Dog, rookie” for Tyler Reese of Team 41, who experienced his first bumps and bruises in what is known as “The world’s longest, toughest snowmachine race.”

“You can’t really see anything, so we were just cruising, I’m just looking down at my GPS,” Reese recalled during the whiteout conditions. “Before I know it, my snowmachine drops out from below me and I went right through the windshield and the windshield cut my chin open,” he said as he showed three stitches under his chin.

“It was like 30 miles from Buckland, so we rode into there, took a layover and I went in and they stitched me up they were real nice. It was good.”

Reese, 19, and his teammate Haakon Wold, also 19, are the youngest team in combined age by several years. Wold already has a top-10 finish under his belt with his father in 2023.

“He’s doing good, he’s doing really good,” Wold said of Reese’s performance.

No fights yet?

“Not yet, there are still three days left,” Wold replied jokingly.

While rookie mistakes happen, it’s often about how fast riders can learn from them, like first-year tandem Tim Gossett and Joseph Gugel from Wasilla.

“We call ourselves the ultimate rookies because we do all the rookie things,” Gossett said. “We went out pretty hard out of the gate on day one, had a couple of wrecks, and we got it out of our system and have been building momentum since then.”

While there are still many miles to the finish, getting even halfway is something to celebrate, as riders are recognized with a halfway banquet on Wednesday. Many acknowledge that says a lot about the demand of this race.

“We’ve been looking forward to this since the day we got out on the Big Lake trail,” Gocke said.

“For the last like three days, I’ve been wondering when we were going to be here,” Conner added.

For the teams that have reached Nome, Wednesday will serve as wrench day, where they will assess their sleds and put in the necessary work to get them through the second half to Big Lake on Sunday.

Continue to monitor Alaska’s News Source for updates along the Iron Dog trail and follow the leaderboard on the Iron Dog website.

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