A week after the Iron Dog came to a close, many members of the race returned home to recover, and to get back to their day-to-day lives.
For Team #6 rider Bradley Kishbaugh, 25, he returned to Soldotna on Wednesday, February 28th with the honor of placing third.
Kishbaugh speaks for him and his partner Mike Morgan, 38, from Nome, that they paced themselves, but ran a very strong race.
“Definitely a top three pace or you know, we would have been a little farther up I think if we didn’t have those issues, but that’s part of racing… We’re happy with where we finish. It’s hard to start a new team and do well and that’s what exactly what we did. And there was good energy on the trail, didn’t have any conflict between me and Mike, so it was very good to get out there and run a strong pace and see what we could do together,” said Kishbaugh.
The duo both rode on a 2024 Polaris Cross Country 600, and did their best to travel and quickly and as intellectually as possible. However, when you’re riding a machine for 2500 miles, there can be some mechanical failures.
And in turn, it can hurt your time.
“We are bumping, we’re battling with for through 1st and 2nd place there for a bit and then we broke that bolt in the rear skids kind of set us back so. Like an hour difference. So we were five, yeah. So at the end we’re about an hour and 20 hour, 30 minutes behind. But right there we were, when we were battling for 1st and 2nd place, we were 5 minutes ahead. We’d make time and then we’d lose some time. So it’s part of the race,” said Kishbaugh.
Kishbaugh says that the biggest struggle about the race was hunger. However, as he has previously mentioned, he and his teammate are very strong mentally and phyically, so they were able to stay positive even when times got tough.
Overall, Kishbaugh says that he and Morgan were both pleased about how they finished, and had a good experience.
“So my favorite part was when everything was clicking and we were making good time. I mean we left Nome and we were making time on the whole field, so it was good. Those good long days, hard days are riding, especially when you’re trying to make up time. You just put your head down and hustle and ride hard and stay positive.”
Kishbaugh says that after the race, he would return to his job at get back into a routine of regular daily life. He and Morgan are grateful for the local support and hope to appear at the Iron Dog next year, and take first place.
