Yesterday at the joint Chamber of Commerce luncheon, we caught up with 7 time Iron Dog Champion Scott Davis, who dropped out of the race this year due to mechanical difficulties.
Davis: “It was a mechanical issue with something that was uncommon for the Ski-Doo E-TEC engine. Didn’t have the parts on the plane and would have been a 10 or 12 hour deficit which is extremely hard to overcome.”
Davis said he and his partner, Aaron Bartel, decided together that it would be best to drop out and added that after 31 years of racing, finishing just to finish the race isn’t as important as it used to be.
He also said the Iron Dog’s route this year was quite rough and dry.
Davis: “The early portions up over the Alaska Range were real short on snow and real icy conditions from the warm weather and then refroze. A fair amount of glare ice on the southern fork of the Kuskokwim and then the burn was virtually 45 miles of just tundra.”
We asked him if he would like to try once more next year.
Davis: “I promised it was going to be my last year. We’ll see. I think I’m done.”