Bering Sea Gold

It's race day in nome.

Every winter, for over 50 years,

the town has turned out for the nome-golovin 200,

the oldest snow machine race in the state of Alaska.

Go, guys, baby. Let's do this.

This year, the celebrated 1999 winner

is returning for one last stab at glory.

Ooh, yeah.

One of our biggest events in nome is the nome-golovin.

You win this thing, you achieve god status.

I did it back in '99, one of my proudest moments.

I'm returning this year to show this town I still got it,

and make a run at the grand prize,

two grand, two ounces of gold.

This race is nome to the bone.

47 racers will run a grueling 200-mile, two-hour sprint

across the twists and turns of nome back country.

Good luck!

Nome-golovin, it's no joke.

Most years, only half the racers at the start

make it back to the finish line.

People crash and get hurt all the time.

But I'm not gonna back down.

I'm competitive about everything,

not just gold mining.

While Shawn is racing for glory,

the rest of the fleet are jumping at the chance

to zoom up the gold board.

Gold.

Some will win...

They will do that under the water.

Hey, come on.

And some will wreck.

Here we go.

Shawn's not the only member of the fleet with a competitive drive.

Got my off-road on. Make sure your off-road is on.

That means you're ready to go.

Chris mccully is racing to take advantage

of Mr. Gold's absence from the field.

He's gonna rally it, notch it up and down.

This winter, I am determined to get the most gold from this fleet.

If Shawn wants to go out and race, that's okay with me.

I can just keep piling up that gold, and be on top.

In fact, I'm gonna make today my biggest haul yet.

48, 49, 50...

That's where all the drone footage tells me

that the ground I really wanna poke on is right over there.

If I wanna stay on top, I've gotta make sure that

we're on the killer ground, off the bat.

And I'm pretty confident that we will be.

The last time I used my rov to prospect,

the ground that I found, it looks sick,

and it's the best ground that I found all winter.

Yeah, I did.

The fact is we've been sucking up a lot of gold so far.

There we go.

Wow!

And I think today is gonna be really lit.

Yeah.

All right, going in.

I put together a great team,

but if I'm gonna get this day started,

I wanna go dive first.

All right. Let me know whatever's going on.

There's a lot of glare around it right now.

I'm just trying to clean up the place

so I can get a better look on it right now.

All right, yep, here we go. Coming up.

Man!

Do you like what you're seeing down there?

I like Jeff bezos' account.

Yeah, we'll pick it up for him.

Looks like there's a lot of ground ahead of us.

You know that I'm gonna make money.

As Shawn careens towards the 50-mile marker

in the nome-golovin 200.

And I'm really hoping to pull it right off the bat.

I really need it. Please, pretty please.

Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty please.

You talk to yourself a lot, and have some good conversations.

An irishman is always forced to talk to himself to find his equal.

I guess you get the best answers you want.

Look in the mirror. Yeah, kris, you're good looking.

- Shut up, stupid! - Yeah, you are, kris, stop worrying.

Kris Kelly is trying to keep his season

from careening off course.

It looks a good spot. Lots of gold.

Lots of gold. It's from my corner.

Like, if we go down there and we start making money,

we're gonna kill this off.

- This is the ideal condition. - Yeah.

Shawn's out there running his race,

and this is the perfect time for me to get some gold

and catch up to him.

And in theory, I got just the way to do it.

Bringing in my custom-made crawler

to scoop the gold off the seafloor,

and we're on a great spot for it.

The problem is, the thing's not here yet.

So, I gotta figure out another way to capitalize on the day.

I'm expecting Daniel and Andrew to get down there.

Move the hose around it a little bit.

Maybe work two, three hours apiece.

Hopefully they can do it.

The crawler should be here any day now,

but if it doesn't,

I'm gonna have a dive team on standby ready.

I'm gonna start training Daniel and Andrew

so we don't miss a beat.

We cleaned out the engine. We've changed spark plugs.

We did everything we could to that engine.

Last time out, this engine gave us trouble.

We inspected every nook and cranny,

so it should be running great now...

In theory.

I just don't know what is the problem.

Fuel, air and spark. We have fuel.

We have spark.

That's why it's not working, dude.

The fuel pump is pinched up here.

The fuel line is pinched up here.

We inspected everything. Every piece of that engine.

But we never noticed the fuel line was pinched against the wall.

That's why we haven't been able to get gold.

A fuel line.

That's why we cost ourselves a bunch of money

and wasted our time.

This winter, we're our own worst enemy.

- Wow, that cost us a lot of money. - 10 grand.

You know, that cost us 10 grand.

I need 10 grand! I need 10 grand!

Whatever, it's fixed. Now on to the next disaster.

We'll get everything set up and see if these rookies

have any gold-getting potential.

If you have a problem priming your hose

and you don't have one of those little ball primers,

the only way to get it done is to suck it through the line

and then hook it up like that.

And this is the result.

That's why I don't do it personally.

Hey, you're not supposed to swallow the gasoline.

You know that, right?

While the Kellys get their engines going...

Welcome to ice station wild ranger.

A familiar face is getting back in the gold race.

Jesus Christ.

Dad, I'll drive us back. How about that?

This season got off to a bad start.

A heart fibrillation almost knocked me on my ass.

- I've gotta go sit down. - My heart's up again.

Yes.

I need to talk to that heart doctor is what I need to do.

Now, I'm rested up and ready to go.

But my daughter, Yvonne, came up to keep an eye on me.

- Hi, I'm Yvonne. - I'm Larry.

She's come up to nome over the years.

You get stuck on a sandbar up here,

and the next thing you know, you're damn bear bait.

A pretty damn good goal.

Hands off, I know how you are.

But I'm especially glad she's here this winter.

With everything going on, it's good to have

one of my daughters up here with me.

Even if it is for a short visit.

I need all the help I can get these days.

Shawn may be able to take time off from mining

and race snowmobiles, but I sure as hell can't.

I made it for 200 ounces this season,

and so far I've got nothing. Nada.

Yeah, I just get kinda nervous

'cause I feel like he may, like, accidentally fall into the ice hole.

Heh, get away from the ice hole.

Jesus Christ.

She actually worries about me a little bit.

It makes me nervous.

I'm thinking right the middle of that cobble field due west of here.

We'll go out there and see if we can find a place

that looks flat, not jumbled up

and that we can get all the way through it.

It sounds good.

It works.

Today is pretty simple.

Find a hole with promising ground and get a diver in the water.

We're already behind because of that heart nonsense,

and now I've got no time for dillydally.

We've got to make it happen today or die trying.

Finally, some good news.

Larry found a great spot

with plenty of untouched ground.

It's time to call in the cavalry and get this show on the road.

Drive those in, and tie these things down.

That needs to be on this side.

Make sure it's gonna crank up.

Make sure all the valves are caught out.

We've got that pretty much in the hands.

We've got that pretty much in the hand.

I got ran over by a four-Wheeler.

You got a

sticky throttle I assume.

But, yeah, that'll do it.