Sunday, February 8, 2009

Another winter event in Alaska. Connor and I went to watch the start of the Tesoro Iron Dog Snowmachine race. This is considered to be the longest, toughest snowmachine race in the world. The racers cover 2,000 miles in 6 days covering all types of terrain while riding both day and night. Anyway, Connor seems to have the bug and wants to run the novice division when he turns 16.

As the racers would leave the starting line, they had a 2 mile run across the lake before they hit the trail. Connor would wait at the end of the starting slot and race them to the trail-head. His machine indicated a maximum speed of 78 miles per hour. That's pretty fast on a snow machine.
The track on the right is standard equipment for the Iron Dog Snow Machines, Connor will be asking for one next Christmas. Notice the metal spikes?