Iron Dog's youngest racer has advantage of exceptional role model
Iron Dog Hall of Famer and two-time Iron Dog champion Evan Booth and his son Steffen prep for Iron Dog 2022 as Team 24. Steffen, at 16-1/2, is the youngest to ever compete in the Pro Class. Courtesy Taylor Booth
The youngest racer to ever take part in the World’s Longest, Toughest Snowmobile Race is in good hands.
Steffen Booth, the 16-and-a-half-year-old from Nome, stands in 17th place, riding alongside his Iron Dog Hall of Fame father, Evan, a two-time Iron Dog champion from the 1990s. The Team 24 arrival in Nome on Monday also meant the two were back home, in their own beds for a short reprieve.
Team 24 racers Evan and Steffen Booth of Nome at the start of Iron Dog 2022. Courtesy Taylor Booth
Team 24 is one of two father-son teams entered in this year’s Iron Dog. Team 28 rookies Sven and Steven Gustafson from Anchorage also were entered this year, but their race ended early after they scratched in Puntilla. These partnerships are prime examples of how the Iron Dog has become an Alaska tradition, with families passing down their passion for the sport from one generation to the next.
The Booths are among Iron Dog royalty, although you’d never know it from Evan Booth’s unassuming nature. Booth made a name for himself in the late 1980s as a teenager on the local race circuit, winning the Nome-Golovin Race, Kotzebue, and the Big Lake 500, among others. But after winning two Iron Dogs in 1992 and 1994 with partner Dan Zipay – and pioneering the idea of long-distance training – Booth became a household name among the snowmachine-racing community.
“He was the first one who would routinely take off from Nome and ride to Galena and back,” said Jim Wilke, a 2022 Iron Dog Hall of Famers, also from Nome, who sponsored Booth’s racing career. “Nobody did that until Evan started doing it, and now it’s the way everyone trains.”
For his part, Evan Booth said he thought his racing days were behind him, and he was OK with that. But Steffen was determined to race.
“He was pretty relentless in poking me all the time, pleading with me,” Booth said from his home in Nome on Monday. “I kept telling him I don’t want to do this again, but then I started thinking, and dwelling on it.”
Steffen Booth, 16, arrives in Nome, the halfway point and his home, on Monday, Feb. 21. He is racing with his father, Evan Booth, a 2018 Iron Dog Hall of Fame inductee. Courtesy Taylor Booth
Booth said he finally relented after realizing that with or without him, Steffen was going to find a way to race – and he preferred his son learn the right way.
“I have no big aches and pains going on with me, I thought I guess I can sacrifice myself one more time,” Booth said. “And of course, I had to talk to his mother about it to get the OK.”
With the help of his family – daughter Taylor is their team promoter, and father-in-law Stan Anderson helped financially – Booth said they decided to give the race a shot.
“And Jim Wilke, above all, has been the biggest help,” he said of his longtime supporter.
So far, the Booths are holding their own. Evan Booth’s goal is to run a clean, smart race, and to safely finish. His son is young and strong and could be traveling much faster, he said, but this is not the year for heroics.
“Steffen would have been here many hours ago without me slowing him down,” Booth said of their 3:33 p.m. arrival into Nome on Monday. “He’s done a tremendous job; he listens and understands. I just want him to absorb all this and think of what’s going on. This is basically an Iron Dog tour.”
That careful approach to racing doesn’t surprise Wilke, who remembers meeting Evan for the first time in 1991, when he was seeking another racer for a team he was sponsoring in the Kotzebue race.
“I walked into the bus barn in Nome, it was about 40 degrees with this dirt floor, and there he was, wrenching on an old Indy 400,” Wilke said. “I barely knew him – he was 18, 19 years old. I asked him what he was doing, and he said he was taking the engine out. I asked him why, and he said, ‘There’s some grease underneath it.’”
Wilke said he looked at Booth and scratched his head.
“I said, ‘Why don’t you just take a rag and a screwdriver and poke around on the underside, it would be much easier,’” Wilke said. “But he just gave me this withering look; that was not good enough. I’ll never forget it.”
After he got to know Booth better, Wilke said he realized that moment in the bus barn was the “tell” that predicted why Booth would be such a successful pro racer.
“He’s careful, he’s prepared, and he’s extremely detail-conscious,” Wilke said. “He’s a remarkable individual, and I’ve worked with him all these years because he produces, and he’s a great role model. There is stuff that Steffen is learning today and yesterday that he won’t know or absorb until July or September, or years from now. He’s lucky to have that.”
With more than a thousand miles behind them, Evan Booth said he is so far impressed with his son’s ability to be patient.
Evan Booth came out of Iron Dog retirement to race with his 16-year-old son Steffen. The Booths live in Nome, and Evan Booth is a two-time Iron Dog champion and Iron Dog Hall of Famer. Steffen is the youngest to race in Iron Dog. Courtesy Taylor Booth
“I put him up front from Kaltag to Unalakleet so he could get a feel for (leading), and he just leaves me,” Booth said. Still, his son also seems to respect the value of caution. He stops Steffen often to point out a feature, or a potentially dangerous section of trail, hoping Steffen will take it in for future races. He explains race strategy that might work in some instances, but not another. Every year’s Iron Dog comes with its own challenges, be it unpredictable weather, mechanical issues, and the varying abilities of other competing teams. All these variables must be considered in the moment, but also not recklessly, Booth said.
Watching other racers has also been an education, Booth noted. To read more about the Booths’ experiences so far on the trail, check out Monday’s evening update at: https://www.irondog.org/news/racers-reach-nome-as-iron-dog-spirit-soars
On Tuesday, Booth and Steffen were scheduled to work on their sleds, another skill the younger Booth has mastered at an early age.
“He’s very high-level at this for his age, but he’s also very humble,” Booth said. “He won’t talk about it.”
Today’s Iron Dog activity consists of Tool Tuesday, in which racers can inspect and wrench on their machines at scheduled intervals on the clock. The South Anchorage High media team will be on-hand live-streaming the activity – go to https://www.irondog.org/news/nome-garage-day-2 to watch.
This evening, the Iron Dog Halfway Banquet and Awards, with dinner sponsored by Subway, will be held, as well as the popular helmet giveaway program, sponsored by Bering Air and Quintillion. Lucky youth riders can receive free snowmachine helmets, compliments of generous Iron Dog sponsors.
As of Tuesday morning, seven of the original 28 teams have scratched, the most recent Team 18 rookies Jesse Bradley and Tad Covault, who scratched in Ruby. Other scratches include Team 38 (Jeff Stoll and Dan Zimmerman), Team 16 (Gage Schaack and Joe Brady), Team 2 (Jacob Dahle and Leah Bauer), Team 28 (Steven and Sven Gustafson), and Team 8 (Chad Gueco and Cody Moen).
Media Contact: Bob Menne, Executive Director, Iron Dog Inc., (907) 854-0097 or (907) 563-4414, director@irondog.org
Follow Iron Dog coverage at www.irondog.org and Iron Dog’s Facebook Page, https://www.facebook.com/IronDogSnowmobileRace