UPDATED 7:33 p.m. Feb. 17, 2020 —

Team 39, Robby Schachle and Cody Barber, is the second team to arrive in Kotzebue, at 6:41 p.m.

Team 6, Brad George and Tyson Johnson, were not far behind, arriving at roughly 6:44 p.m.

Team 7, Tyler Aklestad and Nick Olstad were the first to arrive earlier in the day.

KOTZEBUE — The first Iron Dog team to reach Kotzebue came roaring into the new host city at 4:59 p.m. Monday amid a wall of fans and spectators in vehicles honking their horns. 

Team 7, Tyler Aklestad and Nick Olstad, will have a full night’s rest before Tuesday morning’s 7 a.m. re-start. The remaining teams will be arriving throughout the evening and night.

Close on Team 7’s tracks are Team 39, Cody Barber and Robby Schachle, who appeared to be roughly 60 miles behind.  

Also running in the Top 5 are Teams 6 (Brad George and Tyson Johnson) and Team 10, Chris Olds and Mike Morgan, who are the two-time defending champions. Brothers Kruz and Kenneth Kleewein, Team 12, also are in the mix, as are Team 49, Klinton Vanwingerden and Andrew Gumley, and Team 16, Todd Minnick and Daniel Thibault.

 Once teams collect in Kotzebue, the excitement for the day will ease until the next stretch of trail takes the racers on to Nome. A brutal winter blizzard created whiteout conditions and brought with it relentless wind gusts that battered racers. 

 “Teams 37, 19, 22, 4 and 24 are traveling together out of Unalakleet,” wrote John Wilson Iron Dog checkpoint lead, at about 3 p.m. “It’s a good move on their part as the storm has intensified with bigger snowflakes.” Wilson said a lot of the racers wanted to stay put until they heard that the storm is expected to continue. 

 As of 5:30 p.m., that cluster of racers was still clustered together about 600 miles into the race, approaching Koyuk.