Steve Fossett bit his dog in the ear to force him to run in Iditarod

From the Chicago Tribune
NATION

Global adventurer Fossett pursues world of records

Monterey County Herald (California), The Times (London), Stanford magazine, Investor's Business Daily, Tribune staff reports

September 6 2007

Steve Fossett has known many roles in his life -- Chicagoan, millionaire, adventurer, record-breaker. Now he's also a missing person, as crews from three states searched for him a second day Wednesday over an area the size of Connecticut. Fossett took off Monday from a Nevada airstrip in a single-engine plane, looking for dry lake beds that might be suitable for his next big adventure -- an attempt to set the land-speed record in a turbojet racer.

A record record-holder

His Web site, stevefossett.com, says the 63-year-old retired commodities broker has held 115 world records or world firsts involving land, water and air. Some best-known:

*August 2006: Glider altitude record -- 50,671 feet.

*March 2005: First solo plane flight around the world without stopping or refueling -- 22,936 miles in 67 hours.

*April 2004: Fastest sailing trip around the world -- 58 days 9 hours.

*July 2002: First solo balloon flight around the world -- 20,626 miles in 13 days 8 hours.

Magic beans

Fossett focused first on a career in information technology; he helped bring Marshall Field's stores into the computer age. Looking for bigger bucks, "I studied income levels in Chicago and found that the two highest-paying occupations were institutional stockbroker and commodities broker." He took a job with Merrill Lynch "because they were the largest brokerage firm in both stocks and commodities." Specializing in soybeans, Fossett made his first million by age 33 -- "As a floor trader, I was very aggressive and worked hard." He founded a commodities firm in Chicago and retired with plenty of money and time for the pursuit of more records.

Top dog

He is not particularly impressive physically -- Fossett's friend British billionaire Richard Branson once described him as "a sort of half android, half Forrest Gump" -- but the adventurer isn't shy about showing his teeth. During the 1992 Iditarod, a 1,165-mile Alaska dogsled race, Fossett's lead pooch decided to take a break. No amount of yelling got the dog moving, so Fossett got down on his hands and knees and bit the husky on the ear. The bite, Fossett wrote in his memoir, "Chasing the Wind," "was hard enough for him to know that I was the lead 'dog,' that I was the alpha male in this chain of command." Fossett's sled finished the race in 47th place.

Nothing left to chance

Fossett has been closely involved in planning the details of his adventures. On one around-the-world flight, he scheduled the plane to land on Midway Island in the Pacific at night because it is home to millions of albatrosses. The birds might have destroyed the aircraft during a daytime landing. "And still," he says, "I occasionally get surprised." He once crash-landed his balloon in a remote India village where local legend said a god would return to Earth in a flying temple. "All I knew," Fossett said, "was a Hindu priest was offering me warm milk fresh from the cow and I thought I'd better drink it."

Try, try, try again

He's no quitter. The solo balloon flight around the world was Fossett's sixth attempt. It took him two tries to finish the Iditarod and four attempts to swim the English Channel (winning the Channel Swimming Association's 1985 award for that year's slowest crossing). He suffered asthma as a child but climbed mountains with his father.

The elusive 'why'

Fossett has given understated reasons for his pursuit of records. "I have a very low boredom threshold," he has said. Or as he once told the Tribune, "It's internal. It doesn't lend itself to explanation." Even his wife of nearly 40 years, Peggy, doesn't try to figure it out. "Peggy does not probe into what's going on in my head," Fossett said last year. "She does not want to delve into my motivations for carrying on doing these things."