(8:20 p.m.) It looks like more teams have left Golovin to head towards Unalakleet. Hopefully that means the weather has cleared up a bit. The GPS tracker shows Team 33 - Bartel/Wichman, 14 McKenna/Van Meter, 2 Sottosanti/Zwink, 10 Huntington Olds, 21 Branholm/Spernak and 40 Marks Marks on the move.
Teams 12 Willard/Goodell, 18 Williamson/Hingsbergen, 5 McAllen/Cherrier, 25 Watson/Price and Albert/Malemute all appear to be in Golovin by the GPS tracker. All of them except Team 5 are double-rookie teams.
Team 3 Dixon/Wold headed back to Nome apparently. Sounds like one of them injured himself before they left Nome.
The race's Facebook page has re-emphasized that the teams are not "racing" right now, and that once they all reach Unalakleet, they will then be released according to their times in Nome.
(7:44 p.m.) Update from the Iron Dog Facebook Page: To reiterate, the teams are on yellow flag (caution) until they reach Unalakleet. We had assumed they wanted to stay after the report from Golovin. Once all the teams arrive into UNK, we'll schedule a race restart.
(7:19 p.m.) At about 5:00 I found out that the racers were stopping in Golovin due to life-threatening conditions. Apparently race veteran and one of team members who was first to Nome, Marc McKenna, called race marshal Chris Graeber and told her that they were stopping in Golovin because the trail was impassible, they were all wet, and "Someone's going to die out here," (this is a... fourth-hand quote, but I'd imagine that's the gist of it).
(UPDATE 11:06 a.m. Friday) Tried to clarify with race official Kevin Kastner whether it was Marc McKenna or Dusty Van Meter who called. Kastner says he thinks both McKenna and Van Meter called race marshal Chris Graeber saying it was dangerous and that they were concerned about the less-experienced riders and that they shouldn't send anyone else that way, but that "Life-threatening conditions" was probably the interpretation down the line. It's hard to clarify stuff like this when I'm writing it off information from our Nome crew who heard it from Kevin who heard it from Chris. Talk about a game of telephone...
According to GPS and a since-deleted Facebook post by an administrator of the Iron Dog page, three teams have decided to go on despite race officials' warnings. The GPS tracker shows Team 11 Palin/Quam, Team 7 Davis/Davis and Team 17 West/George have moved on.
At a point when all their GPS units had pinged at the same time, all three teams appeared to be moving about 12 MPH very close to each other.
Race fans on both the Iron Dog and KTUU Facebook pages are torn. Many are applauding the decision by race officials (I'm still not sure what "decision" was made, or if it was just racers themselves) to heed to safety. Others are basically saying "This is the Iron Dog, it's expected, man up or get out."
I'm torn. I'm obviously not out on the trail (or what's left of it). I am no pro distance snowmachine racer, but I'd take the word of a seasoned veteran. Maybe Marc McKenna's risk threshold is lower than the teams who continued on. I know my risk threshold is a heckofa lot lower than all the racers. Maybe he felt hindered by the rookie teams but didn't want to lead them to believe they could do it too.
I'll never berate someone for saying "this is too dangerous, I'm not risking my life or that of others to go on." On the other hand, if these three teams think they can make it, perhaps they can. Quite honestly, if anyone has the experience to make it, these guys do. But when you throw an organization into it, with insurance, liability and all that mumbo-jumbo, it gets complicated.
