At the top of the world,
the ice road truckers are...
- Back on the road again.
Pushing the limits
along America's most dangerous road.
Next, Lisa Kelly is down.
- This is horrible.
I don't know what's going on.
Ray is out in the cold.
- The engine light's flashing again.
- We're gonna have to haul the truck back to town.
- Great.
An old rivalry...
- Next time you look in the mirror,
it'll be me behind you.
Heats up the ice.
- Spun out on the hill.
And a devastating wreck
sends shockwaves up the Dalton.
- That's one of our guys.
These are the truckers
who make their living on thin ice.
Ripped & Corrected By mstoll
The deadliest weather in Alaska
can strike out of a clear blue sky.
A whiteout-
what Alaskans call "a blow" --
Is a rogue pocket of swirling snow.
It can kill a driver quickly
by blinding him to oncoming traffic.
Or kill him slowly by clogging his engine with snow
and leaving him to freeze to death.
Days into the ice road season,
high winds kick up a whiteout 50 miles south of Prudhoe Bay.
Yet it's clear and cold at the Carlile yard in Prudhoe
as Jack Jessee starts an urgent mission.
- Everything's looking pretty good so far.
We're gonna air the trailer up.
Get our suspension to start working,
check that out.
Out on the rigs,
an 8,000-gallon oil tank has been damaged.
They're counting on Jack to haul the massive 17-foot-tall tank
back to Fairbanks for repairs.
- Well, for safety purposes, we gotta make sure
that I've got enough driver weight
to get the job done,
'cause the tank isn't all that heavy,
but it doesn't give me enough driver weight to do it,
so I've got some extra counterweights to make sure
I got plenty of driver weight,
make sure I don't spin out for any reason
and then become a safety hazard.
- Gotcha. - All right.
- We'll get it moving, bud.
A southbound load to Fairbanks
is called a backhaul and puts extra money
in a driver's pocket.
But this one also comes with extra pressure.
- Kind of a rush deal.
They use a lot of these up here in the wintertime
out on the oil rigs.
So something important for me to do.
And away we are.
Now we're in a race back to Fairbanks
so we can keep this tank moving.
As Jack heads straight into the blow,
second-year man Greg Boadwine...
- Oh, let's see what they got today.
ls looking for his own share of the backhaul bucks.
After crashing his truck
and nearly losing his life last season,
Greg 's out to prove that he still belongs on the Dalton.
- What's up? - Oh, not much.
See if you got anything for me to take home.
The low man on the totem pole's
got to work a little harder to earn that extra load.
- All right, make you a deal.
Before you take this load out,
I'll let you pour me some coffee, all right?
- Fair enough. Black, what, sugar, cream?
- Two of those French vanilla creamers, please.
- Ooh.
The bigger the load, the more it pays,
and this light trailer of boards
isn't exactly the bonus he was looking for.
- Kind of a light sissy load, but, hey,
it cost me a cup of coffee just to get a trailer behind me,
much less a load.
Getting a sissy, or twinkie load,
just adds insult to the injury
of losing the race to Jack
on their first run of the season.
- You got me.
- Well, I'm glad you finally made it here.
I was starting to get worried for a second.
- He's Jack Jessee. He is the haul road ace.
It's always good to get one up on him every once in a while.
With his featherweight load,
Greg figures he'll fly past the old pro.
But now tentacles of snow begin to reach across the road.
The first sign that he's entering the blow.
- I can see probably 400 foot on average right now.
Full out phase-two blow.
In a phase-two blow,
a driver relies on the delineators
that mark the side of the road to stay out of the ditch.
- If I lose the delineators,
I don't know what side of the road I'm on-
I don't even know if I'm on the road
until I feel the bump when I fall off.
You never know what'll happen.
I can come up on a truck real quick.
Somewhere on the socked-in road ahead
is Jack Jessee.
But for now, this fledging rivalry
takes a backseat to staying alive through the blow.
- If he goes in the ditch or something else,
I'll be along to give him a hand.
If I go in the ditch, I'm gonna have to sit here,
hope and pray that the next guy comes along
and comes pretty quick.
450 miles south
at the Carlile yard in Fairbanks,
the Polar Bear is once again on the prowl.
- Hey. you old mugger, hows it going?
- Mr. Rowland, good to see you.
- How the you doing? - I think you got taller.
Yeah.
Canadian ice road legend Hugh Rowland
is back for a second crack at the Dalton.
But for the first time in over 20 years,
he's running behind his rival, Alex Debogorski.
- First load or what?
- We're a load ahead of you, looks like.
- What are you doing sitting here
looking at yourself in the mirror?
Next time you look in the mirror,
it'll be me behind you.
- I'm gonna keep you in the mirror too.
- That'll be every time I pass you.
- Well, no-well, we'll do what we ever have to do.
- Well, I'm gonna go in there and do my best stats and stuff.
I'll talk to you later. - Okay.
- Yeah.
Across the yard, at dispatch,
Lisa Kelly is looking for her next load of the season.
- What have I got today?
- You have an LTL load.
Got some steel, some lumber,
and I believe we even threw a pickup truck on there for you.
- Is it oversize or hazardous or anything of that matter?
- No, just a run-of-the-mill LTL load for you.
Lisa's goal is to prove
that she can haul the heavy stuff.
This collection of leftovers from other loads
doesn't advance the cause.
- I have an LTL trailer.
LTL means "Less Than Load."
So it means it's not one whole load for one person.
It means, like, maybe this truck will go to someone
and then maybe these-
this metal beam under here will go to someone else.
And the wood will probably go to someone else, so.
LTLs come with none of the glory
but all the work.
Weight distribution can be wildly uneven.
The driver has to fight an unbalanced load
going up the road.
- I want to earn the respect of the people up here
but not 'cause I'm demanding it,
'cause I'm not demanding it.
I want to earn it.
I want to work every inch of it and to earn the respect up here.
But in the boys' club of truck drivers,
old ideas die hard,
and a woman on the road makes for an easy target.
- I knew it.
I knew they were talking.
- They forget that I'm still here.
I can still hear you.
They are talking about me,
and I am being watched because I am the odd one out.
And that's okay, because I can do it.
I can deal.
So it's kinda just shrug it off.
There.
Just an hour into her haul,
Lisa has got bigger problems than trash talk on the radio.
- When I step on my brakes really hard, they're, like,
catching, and then they're not,
and then they're catching, and then they're not.
I'm freaked out right now.
70 miles north of Fairbanks...
Lisa Kelly gets hit with the last problem
a driver wants-
Bad brakes.
- When I hit them really light, they work fine.
It's when I'm, like, kinda needing
to get stopped fast that they're kinda not working
how I'd like them to work.
I'm gonna just-I'm gonna crawl under there and look at 'em.
Lisa wants respect on the Dalton.
This is a big chance to earn it, fixing her rig by herself.
- Here I go.
She knows her truck,
but trailers are a different story.
Every trailer can have a different brake setup.
- Yeah, this is horrible.
I have never seen these kind before.
I'm gonna try to figure this out.
I really am.
I'm getting a hint.
One of the trailer brake pads
is badly out of adjustment,
causing the brake to grab unevenly.
Even worse, one brake out of spec
means the whole system is out of balance.
If she stops suddenly,
she could lose control of the rig.
- 'Cause I just tightened it all the way down
and now I'm gonna back it off.
Maybe.
Or not.
Once the brake pad is up against the disc,
she needs to back it off just enough
so that the wheel spins freely.
But it won't budge.
- I don't know what's going on...
at all.
For the second run in a row,
the challenge of the road is more than Lisa can handle.
- Well, so much for looking like a hero instead of a zero.
If I can get to Coldfoot, I can make a phone call
and figure out how to back it off.
But do I want to chance running with it with one brake tight?
Lisa faces a tough decision-
return to Fairbanks to get her brakes fixed
or keep the load moving north.
85 miles into his second run,
rookie driver Ray Vellieux is also at a dead stop.
- Why we stopped here is,
we smell a little bit of antifreeze,
so we're gonna check the truck.
And it's probably just coming out the overflow
'cause the truck got worked on last night.
So they just probably topped if off
and it's just blowing it out.
An antifreeze leak can cause serious problems
for a truck running on ice.
The truck can overheat in a matter of minutes,
shutting down the engine and stranding a driver
in 20-below weather.
Ray can't find a leak,
but for now, the damage is minimal.
- So we'll get ready and get on out of here.
The rookie decides to press his luck.
- There's a lot to worry about. You worry about your family.
You worry about your truck. You worry about the road.
You worry about getting a load there.
It's not just drive the truck and get it there.
It's-you got a lot of things going through your-
going through your mind.
Back in Fairbanks, Hugh Rowland reports for duty.
Before a driver can hit the road,
he has to pass a drug test.
- I'm ready for my pregnancy exam.
I'm Hugh.
- I'm Amanda. Nice to meet you, Hugh.
- What if I have more than this?
- If you have more than that,
I would prefer it go into the toilet.
- I can't save it and I'll go christen my truck?
Alex is taking his truck over to the church.
I'm just gonna piss on it here.
- That's your christening, huh?
- This will be quite a sample, you know?
Yep, she's high-octane, low-sulfur diesel fuel.
Everything went good.
Good.
Well, I'll tell you one thing,
if that test comes back and says I'm pregnant,
I'm cutting the thing off.
Almost as unlikely as Hugh being pregnant
is the fact that Alex is one load ahead of him.
- In the race of the tortoise and the hare,
the turtle is a little bit ahead of Hugh Rowland.
Well, it's time to go.
Don't wanna waste any more time.
Today Alex is hauling a load of pipe
and hoping to build on his one-day,
one-load lead over his rival, the Polar Bear.
- One of my goals is,
keep my lead on the rabbit there, Hughey.
Oh, I'm on my second trip, and as far as I know,
when I left town, he was still sitting.
300 miles north...
Greg Boadwine is driving nearly blind
in a borderline phase-three blow.
- I can kinda see a little bit, but not too terribly well.
I'm gonna stay real slow.
This morning,
Greg's only question was
how quickly he would overtake Jack Jessee.
- I like Jack a lot.
He is the ace but-
maybe hauling bigger and heavier loads-
but it's not how big the load is.
It's how many you get there.
Now Greg breaks through
the wall of blowing snow.
Finally, he has the chance to make a serious run
at Jack Jessee, when suddenly...
- We got a report of a fuel tanker overturned
41 miles north of Coldfoot.
DOT reports a fuel tanker has wrecked,
sending chills up and down the Dalton.
- All vehicles, please proceed with extreme caution.
- Looks like there's an accident someplace up on the Dalton.
- You've got a fuel truck that's over-
it might be overturned, or it might be in the ditch.
They haven't been real clear.
- Even though this is a 500-mile road,
news travels extremely fast.
We really hope the driver's not hurt.
If it's scary to hear on the radio,
it's even more so to see close up.
- We are gonna get up here
and see if there's anything we can do
to offer assistance or if we just need to sit back,
keep our mouths shut, and stay out of the way.
Halfway up the ice road,
a fuel tanker lost control...
Overturned, and broke in two.
Got a tanker on its side, dented, rolled.
I don't-it's bad.
The road is obviously dangerous.
You got a truck sitting here with a tanker in the ditch.
I mean, if it that doesn't explain it,
I don't know what I can say to explain it to you.
All it took was a moment's lapse
in the driver's concentration.
The truck drifted right,
and its front tire got caught in the soft snow,
pulling the entire rig off the road.
The fifth wheel,
which connects the trailer to the truck,
snapped off.
The tanker separated from the rig,
and 9,000 tons of diesel fuel rolled down the embankment.
Trucking legend Keith Mitchell had run the Dalton
for over 20 years without a single accident.
In a split second, this veteran trucker
lost his perfect record and very nearly his life.
- The fifth wheel
just ripped right off the frame of the truck,
and that's when the tanker rolled over and down the bank.
Otherwise, my truck would be down in the bank
against the trees right now.
That fifth wheel breaking off my truck like that
probably saved my life.
Keith was lucky to survive,
but the tanker's heading for the junkyard.
Now the Carlile hazmat team is on the job,
racing to prevent a fuel spill
that could turn into an environmental disaster.
- Hooking up the hoses so that we can pump the tanker off.
- Could be laying on a boulder or something down there,
so we don't want to move it
until we can get most of the weight out of it,
'cause it could-
could do more damage trying to move it
than by leaving it there.
If it can happen to a seasoned veteran,
new drivers like Greg are seriously at risk.
- His attention might have been off the road
for two seconds.
That's all it took.
This could have easily been me.
As dangerous as it is today,
it was even worse in the 1970s,
when the Dalton had a sinister nickname.
- The Dalton used to be known by truckers
as the Kamikaze Trail.
The crazy driving conditions,
people thought they were taking their lives into their hands
when they went out onto that road.
A lot of them were hauling 80-foot sections of pipe.
And trying to keep that thing straight on the highway
was one of the hardest things they ever tried to do
as a truck driver.
The kamikaze trail has faded into history.
What hasn't changed is the freight-
the long, unstable,
projectile-like sections of pipe,
just like Hugh Rowland's first load of the season.
- It's long pipe. It's called long pipe.
The hardest part is just making sure
it doesn't shift on you,
and pipe either comes forward
towards the cabin or off the back end.
Ready to get up the road.
I'm outta here.
Get as many loads as I can possibly get,
and that's how I make my paycheck,
so that's what I'm running with.
Only a few miles out...
- That four-wheeler behind me has a load of pipe,
you can go ahead and go by me if you want.
- All righty, thanks.
Hugh gets a reminder
of just how dangerous the Alaskan road can be.
- Whoops. Look at that. Whoa!
- That was close!
My front tire just started to get sucked in.
As he passed Hugh,
the pickup driver slipped sideways on the ice
and clipped the snow bank.
- No, you don't need that, no.
He near lost it completely.
He just-he just barely got her back straightened out.
And do-and there's no way I'd have been able to stop.
He'd have been a dead duck.
Hugh dodged a bullet.
As he hits the Dalton,
he bears down on the road and his rival.
- Once I pass Alex, he never catches up.
Same every year.
He'll live his life looking over his shoulder
looking for me.
He doesn't know where I'm at right now.
70 miles up the Dalton,
Lisa Kelly has decided to play it safe.
She's heading back to Fairbanks
to get help with a brake problem she couldn't fix herself.
- Oh, I feel really stupid
because I created this problem for myself.
As Lisa looks for a place to turn around...
a familiar voice comes over the radio.
- Yeah? Go ahead.
Who is this?
Sweet.
Can I meet you on the top of 2 1/2, pretty please?
- Uh, yeah.
Ryan Groth, a more experienced driver,
was Lisa's convoy partner on her first run.
It was Ryan who suggested
Lisa trade out her oversized car carrier,
a decision that she still regrets.
And today Ryan once again is on the scene.
- This is the stupidest thing on planet Earth
and I feel stupid for not knowing how to do it.
I'm trying to adjust my brakes,
but I have never seen these kind before
and I don't want to go until everything's adjusted right.
- Right.
- So if you could just show me how to back them off,
I would be happy and I will even do it.
I just-
I'll show you what I mean. See? It's up here.
- Yeah, I see. This little guy right here...
- Yeah?
- You have to press it down the same time as you-
as you turn it.
What Lisa didn't know is that a release mechanism
locks the brake adjustments in place.
With the press of a button and the twist of a wrench,
Ryan's got the brake adjusted in no time.
- I think you're gonna be all right with it...
- Okay. - The way it is.
- Okay, I just wasn't sure.
Well, I appreciate it.
- Don't worry about it.
Lisa's up and running, but her pride has taken a hit.
- Still kind of sucks that it happened
and that I have to once again be helped.
I wanted to be the helper and not the helpee.
150 miles up the road,
as he approaches the tanker wreck,
Ray Vellieux gets a firsthand look
at just what he's risking when he heads out on the Dalton.
- Well, that don't look good.
Oh, my lord. That don't look good at all.
That's bad.
It's scary for me to see something like that,
'cause nobody wants to go through that.
That's bad.
I think that's about, like, the toughest thing
being on the haul road,
is, you worry about all the road and everything else.
You worry about home.
You worry about your wife. Is she okay?
Is your daughter okay?
Is your son all right?
A friend of mine that works here with us,
he got a phone call a couple nights ago
that his daughter that's in her first year of college,
just like mine, just got in a vehicle accident.
A drunk driver hit her.
So it looked like she was on life support...
and it didn't look good
that he had to get back to Arizona right away,
so he tried getting a flight out of Prudhoe
and missed the flight by about ten minutes.
So then he had to unload his tanker
and haul butt back to Fairbanks.
And then you have to drive all the way back from Prudhoe,
another 12-hour drive, you know,
thinking about all what's going on, so...
You think about it all the time,
that you might get that phone call one day,
and you're thinking, like,
"Geez, I sure hope it don't happen."
And I know him and I talked about it,
'cause we're in the same boat, you know?
We're out here halfway across the freaking continent,
and they're out there, and he's working here,
and what would you do?
And here it happens.
It's a pretty sad thing.
30 miles north of the Arctic Circle,
Lisa Kelly's confidence is at a new low
after being rescued once again by another driver.
But just ahead...
Another trucker is in far deeper trouble.
Eddie Gilbert skidded off the road
and is pinned by heavy snow in the ditch.
- Hey, Terry, does it look like something
that I could help with?
Sounds like he's completely off the road,
but that's not gonna stop me
from trying to get out and see if I can help.
Doesn't sound like I can,
but I'm not writing it all off yet.
If I can get him or not.
- Is there any way that I could try to see
if I could pull him out?
I mean, I want to help.
Very, very much want to help.
Lisa's been helped out of jams
by other truckers.
This is finally her chance to return the favor.
- There we go.
Got it in there.
It'll work?
Watch out! This might be dangerous for you.
Just say when.
- Go ahead.
- Yes!
I'm so glad that worked for you.
Eddie is back in action.
- Lisa, thanks a million.
- You are so welcome. Have a good trip.
I think that might-
that might help me get a little bit of respect.
Not a whole lot, but I'm not saying
that that's gonna earn all of it.
It's just maybe one step closer to be able to fit in
and show that I can pull my weight up here.
For Lisa, a day that began
with disrespect over the radio
ends with a very different kind of call.
- Hey, this is Sam Bishop here.
Did you get, uh- did you get Eddie pulled out?
- 10-4. He's all out and on his way now.
- Yeah, thanks and good job.
Probably see you up at Coldfoot.
- See you later.
70 miles up the Dalton,
a full-scale rescue mission is under way.
First, the Carlile hazmat team
successfully offloaded the fuel from the overturned tanker.
- We lost a little bit of fuel,
but it's all cleaned up and contained
and won't be any damage or any long-term damage.
Now Ben Kryzkowski and his veteran clean-up crew
are on the job working to haul the tanker
back up onto the road.
- This strap here is gonna go around,
and then we'll drag her right up the side of the hill here.
With the straps in place,
Ben's wrecker begins pulling the tanker around.
- Okay, everybody, stand clear!
Watch out.
Oh, beautiful.
Once the tanker is upright,
the biggest job begins:
Hauling the tanker sideways up the embankment.
- Come on, baby.
Watch that cable there.
Good.
- I think we're good.
This morning,
Keith Mitchell lost control for the first time
in two decades of driving.
16 hours later, 9,000 gallons of fuel has been recovered.
His 50-ton tanker is free from the ditch.
- We just got the trailer back up on the road.
Just got the wrecker unhooked from it.
Only the fifth wheel snapping,
freeing the cab from the tanker, saved Keith Mitchell
from becoming a victim of the saying
that on the Dalton,
your first mistake can often be your last.
- Could have been a lot worse.
Like I said, most important thing:
driver's not hurt.
Took his attention off the road just for a second,
and, you know, this is what happens.
A few miles north...
Greg's stop at the scene of the tanker wreck
has put him nearly 20 miles behind Jack Jessee.
But seeing veteran Keith Mitchell's close call
has Greg rethinking his need for speed.
- Definitely have to find the aspect
of where safety and speed can meet
to make sure you have a trip home to your family.
All that matters to my wife and my kids
is that I make it home one way or the other.
As long as I'm not in a pine box, we're good.
With his family on his mind,
Greg will spend the night at Coldfoot.
20 miles south, stopping for the night
is not an option for the haul road ace.
- I got a really good track record
on gettin' the job done,
pretty much of I'm doing what I say I was gonna do.
They said they wanted it in town tonight.
I'm gonna get that done for 'em.
While Jack pushes south with his backhaul,
Alex is headed north, now facing an incline
up the aptly named Chicken Run.
- I'd like to know if this is a straight run here or not.
She sure looks straight.
The phase-two blow kicks up,
and Alex is barely able to see the edge of the road.
- All these markers are covered with frost.
You can't see 'em.
Get my X-ray vision workin' here.
Suddenly, he crests the hill
and starts rolling down the other side.
But he's rolling fast.
- I think we're coming down here a little quicker
than we'd want to be going.
That isn't my trailer is it, ing around back there?
The jolts to Alex's trailer
were two delineators getting leveled.
Taking them out endangers other drivers
and is a serious infraction,
but in the middle of a blow,
Alex isn't stopping for anything.
- Holy mackerel.
It's slippery there.
40 miles behind,
hard-driving Hugh Rowland has erased
much of Alex's head start.
- Like I said, I'm not stopping today.
I'm getting to Prudhoe Bay, no matter what.
As he hits the steep grade at Ice Cut,
Hugh isn't taking time to put on chains.
His tires begin to lose their traction,
spinning, then sliding to a dead stop.
- Spun out. - Spun out on the hill.
What else can you say?
It's icy.
It's an ice road.
Yeah, I didn't make 'er to the top of 'er.
Nope.
Ah, I gotta put some chains on.
If the Polar Bear has one weakness, it's this.
He rarely needed to chain up on the ice roads
of his native Canada.
- I'm gonna try and get this one on here.
He just doesn't have the chops for it.
Come on.
I can't get that one done up over there.
Piles of.
Can't even get the chains done up.
I'm gonna have to take this one off again.
The other drivers are getting restless.
- I see Hugh's still up there,
uh, messing with the chains or something.
I don't know.
- That's as tight as I can get 'em right now.
Come on, baby.
Finally, the chains grip the ice,
and he claws his way up the hill.
But for blocking traffic,
Hugh finally gets a big slice of haul road humble pie.
- Okay, you guys.
You can come on up if you want.
- 10-4.
About time.
- Back on the road again.
50 miles south of Prudhoe Bay,
rookie Ray Vellieux is nearly to the finish line...
When a minor leak suddenly escalates
into full-blown trouble.
- What's burning?
Something's burning.
I just saw an engine code go off up on the dash, so...
Again.
It goes on and off,
so if I find a place to pull over,
we're gonna have to pull over.
Ray pulls off into swirling winds
and temperatures of nearly 30 below.
- Great.
Right in the middle of a ground blow.
That's gonna be fun.
Everyone who runs the Dalton
has heard the tales of stranded drivers
freezing to death in the arctic night.
If he can't fix his engine,
a total breakdown could leave Ray stranded
with no heat, no radio,
and the closest help 50 miles up the frozen road.
- Well, I know I got an electrical problem.
I got to find that.
But it could be under the dash.
But we also have a bunch of antifreeze
blowing out all over the place.
Boy, it's cold.
Got a bunch of antifreeze
leaking out the back of the motor.
Probably just a hose back there,
but I can't find it, and it's too cold and windy
to look for it anyway,
so we'll limp it into town
and just get out of here right now while we can.
With temperatures dropping,
Ray rolls the dice,
betting that his truck can survive
the last few miles to Prudhoe Bay.
450 miles south,
Jack Jessee rolls into Fairbanks with his critical load.
- You got a bigger load like this,
it stresses you in a lot of different ways.
The road itself is always a physical issue.
It just wears you out.
Mentally, it's just a strain
knowing you've got all this responsibility on you.
'Cause if anything happens, I mean, it's gonna be my fault.
Finally, after 16 white-knuckle hours,
Jack Jessee has once again
lived up to his reputation as the ace driver
on America's most dangerous road.
- Took a big load up.
Brought a big load back.
Been on the road for about four days now,
and I am just tuckered out.
Up in Prudhoe Bay...
Alex Debogorski has completed his second run of the season.
- A successful trip to Prudhoe.
It looks like I beat Hugh.
I don't know where he is,
but might be the only time he doesn't pass me all season,
but I got here first.
Just minutes behind, Hugh arrives.
- Jesus.
How about the one where, uh-
like, I knew you were ahead of me,
because all the delineators were missing
up on that curve up there.
That's the only way I even know you're in front of me.
- They were all sticking
in the back of my trailer, right?
- Are you going in for supper? - Yeah.
- Okay, well, hurry up. - I'm hurrying.
- Okay.
- You're gettin' in the way, like usual.
On day four of the season,
it's deuces wild on the load board,
with Hugh one full trip behind...
and Ray Vellieux still trying to make
the last ten miles into Prudhoe Bay.
- Uh-oh.
The engine light was flashing again,
and I'm out of antifreeze.
Ray inches his way down the home stretch.
- The first thing that we noticed
is, we could smell, like, burning rubber or plastic,
so I knew right away we had an electrical problem.
We're gonna have to just keep going here.
Ray's crippled rig finally limps
into the last-chance truck yard of the north.
- I've had a lot of close calls.
Definitely.
Everybody always says, "Dude,
you've got, like, nine lives, man."
It's like, "Yeah."
Rare good fortune saved Ray
from being stranded in the night,
but as he heads into the shop for the diagnosis,
his luck may have run out.
- Well, it's the-
antifreeze leak's at the back of that head
somewhere in that area.
- Can you fix it?
- Not up here, no.
- And if you can't-
- If it's the head gasket,
we're gonna have to haul the truck
back to town and get it- put it in a shop.
- If the truck's down for ten days
and there's no spare trucks, then...
that makes for a pretty small paycheck.
Next week on Ice Road Truckers,
the first storm of the season hits Prudhoe Bay.
- It's very dangerous.
I hope I get out of it.
Jack gets stranded in minus-50 degree winds.
- The motor's getting cold,
and if I leave it shut off too long,
it won't start again.
A rookie cracks under the pressure.
- Been one of the days I've ever flipping had.
I'm gonna quit.
And Alex may have hauled his last load.
- The only thing that's holding you up right now
is your blood pressure.
It could be stress.
That's the one thing that automatically disqualifies you.
Ripped & Corrected By mstoll