Call it a battle of the titans.
When Alaska's 31st edition of the Arctic Man event kicks off this week in the Hoodoo Mountains near Summit Lake off the Richardson Highway, some of Alaska's finest snowmachiners, along with skiers and snowboarders from across the country, are expected to gather for the competition, the spectacle and the good times.
The money's not bad, either. Because weather canceled most of last year's races, the purse has nearly doubled to $204,000, according to founder and race director Howard Theis, with the winning team pocketing $61,000.
"That's by far the most ever," noted 51-year-old Anchorage schoolteacher Eric Heil, a four-time champion. "It's the highest-priced ski race with cash on the table that I know of."
None of the 55 teams entered will turn down prize money, but the need for speed is what fuels their ambition — or as they say every year at Arctic Man, "Go fast or go home."
Don't expect many to tuck tail. The field of racers in Alaska's premier melding of motorized and non-motorized sports includes such speedy luminaries as:
• Marco Sullivan, the four-time Olympic skier from Squaw Valley, California;
• Tyler Aklestad of Palmer and his Iron Dog partner Tyson Johnson of Eagle River, crowned champions of the world's longest and toughest snowmachine race two months ago;
• Scott McCartney of Washington, a two-time Olympian;
• Longtime Alaska racing partners Heil and Len Story, five-time champions still racing hard into their 50s;
• An array of other Iron Dog snowmachiners, including Mike Morgan, seven-time champions Scott Davis and John Faeo, Eric Quam and Ryan Sottosanti.
"This is without a doubt the strongest Arctic Man competitive field ever," Heil said. "It's never been this deep."
The record on the 5.5-mile course, set in 2013 by Sullivan and Aklestad, is 3 minutes, 52.7 seconds, an average of about 79 mph on a course that includes some uphill. That's much faster than a typical downhill for ski racers, who average 40-60 mph, though Olympic medalists can exceed 90 mph on portions of a Winter Games course. Sullivan and Aklestad are aiming for a record sixth victory.
Speed alone isn't enough. Teams must have coordination, athleticism and smarts.
The race is scheduled for 11 a.m. Thursday, with the skier or snowboarder atop a 5,800-foot peak known as the Tit, before plunging 1,700 feet to an open area lined with spectators where a pas de deux with the snowmachiner starts. The skier or boarder grabs a tow rope and zooms uphill several yards behind the driver for about 2.2 miles. Once atop another hill, the skier or boarder gets slung downhill for a 1,200-foot dive to the finish.
"Mixing a motorized sport with a non-motorized sport is rare," Heil said. "Drivers love trying to rip the arms off of skiers, and skiers like being pulled around by the power of the machine."
Race rules limit snowmachines to 600cc.
"I think we'll break 3:52," said Thies, suggesting the race record may fall. "Lot of it has to do with the terrain."
Thousands watch. Thies expects 12-15,000 people to show up for the weekend, transforming a parking area along the Richardson Highway into Alaska's "Motorhead Woodstock." If 12,000 show up, the site instantly becomes Alaska's fourth-largest city, trailing only Anchorage, Fairbanks and Juneau. In addition to watching the races, fans ride in the mountains and socialize all weekend.
Alaska writer Matt White in SB Nation called it "a weeklong, booze and fossil-fueled Sledneck Revival bookended around the world's craziest ski race. Both the festival and the race at its heart have been firing off every year in these mountains for more than half as long as Alaska has been a state. Over the course of a week, something like 10,000 partiers … drink, grill, fight, drink and, at least while the sun is out, blast their sleds through the ear-deep powder in the surrounding hills one last time before it all melts away."
Call it a final taste of winter.
"We can leave our jobs and get out of town for a week and go light our hair on fire for five days," Heil said.
"It's a unique thing about that weekend in April. You can almost guarantee it's the week spring shows up. It's like watching the geese show up. You drive up there and when you open up into the Summit Lake area, it's like you drive into a magic hole in the sky."
Contact Mike Campbell at mcampbell(at)alaskadispatch.com