Tarad Club

There are a lot of ways to spend a drizzly Saturday afternoon in Seattle: browsing for books, boating on the lake, hitting a museum. Dave Ballas of North Bend spent his face-down inside a papier-mâché replica of the Fremont Troll, rolling down Fremont Avenue and trying not to crash into the hay bales lining the street.

Because that, of course, would look silly.

“It’s pretty tight in there,” Ballas said of the elaborate go-cart that took him and his four teammates some 200 hours to build this summer. “I was a little nervous about my peripheral vision, but I’ve gone 180 on a motorcycle, so I figured I could handle it.”

Ballas’ team, the Rollin’ Troll of Fremont, was one of 30-plus that entered their handcrafted, gravity-powered cars in the Red Bull Soapbox Race, which drew hundreds of spectators to its first Seattle visit.

Fremont, which has gone from artsy-funky to techno-genteel in near-record time, was an appropriate setting for the Soapbox Race, as corporate promotion mixed it up with goofball creativity.

Take the daring young men of the Lake Washington Tech All-Stars. Their contraption combined two Puget Sound landmarks - a green-and-white Washington state ferry towing a Space Needle that pivoted as it rounded turns. The vehicle was so long it required two drivers, 23-year-old Shelby Stong up front and 29-year-old Matt Levy in the rear.

Before they took off, the All-Stars did a rather risqué dance for the crowd in - and out of - their ferry crew uniforms (this being the kind of race where showmanship counted at least as much as, you know, actual speed).

Then they launched themselves off the starting ramp. Unlike several other cars, theirs had no problem navigating the “berm” that curved from North 41st Street onto Fremont Avenue North.

This was Stong and Levy’s first attempt at a postmodern soapbox derby, though not in creating vehicles. Levy said he’d built his own jeep; Stong once welded together two shopping carts and sent them downhill with a friend as pilot, which seems as good experience as any.

There were high hopes for the Anytime Fitness team, whose vehicle was shaped like a sneaker, but it crashed at the berm and was beyond repair. Undeterred, driver Jay Holby - otherwise known as “Captain Running Man” - lived up to his moniker and started sprinting down Fremont Avenue.

“I heard somebody yell ‘Run!’ and I knew that was my only hope,” said Holby, 36. He got points for spirit, if not for speed.

The go-carts tended to divide themselves into two categories: sleek and aerodynamic, or large and absurd. In the latter category were the giant baby carriage (Go Baby Go!), the giant banana (SkateBanana) and the giant ski boot (Skivalanche).

Among the former was Al Brody, who came all the way from Colorado Springs to race his Lincoln Log car. Brody, 48, was a veteran of two previous Red Bull events, including last year’s Soapbox Race in St. Louis, where he placed second, and he had high hopes for success in Seattle.

But mostly, it was about having a good time.

“This is so much fun,” he said. “It’s like being invited to an amusement park with a VIP pass, and you get to control the rides.”

Drew DeSilver: 206-464-3145 or ddesilver@seattletimes.com

GAINESVILLE, Fla. - On a day filled with upsets, Auburn turned in one of the biggest.

Freshman Wes Byrum kicked a 43-yard field goal as time expired to lift the Tigers to a 20-17 victory over fourth-ranked Florida on Saturday night.

The loss snapped an 11-game winning streak for the defending national champions and gave the Gators their first home loss under coach Urban Meyer. They had won 18 in a row there, 17 since Meyer took over in 2005.

Florida (4-1, 2-1 Southeastern Conference) could take a big step back next week at No. 2 LSU. If the Gators perform like they did Saturday, they could be in for a long day.

Other Top 25 games

Kansas State 41, No. 7 Texas 21

AUSTIN, Texas - Two kick returns for touchdowns and an interception return for another score propelled Kansas State to a victory over Texas (4-1), the Longhorns’ worst home defeat in 10 years under coach Mack Brown.

Linebacker Ian Campbell scored on a 41-yard interception return in the second quarter and James Johnson took a kickoff 85 yards for a 21-14 lead moments after Texas had tied the score.

Jordy Nelson’s 89-yard punt return in the third put the Wildcats up 34-21.

No. 2 Louisiana State 34, Tulane 9

NEW ORLEANS - One good half was more than enough for LSU against Tulane.

Jacob Hester’s second touchdown of the game and Charles Scott’s pair of scoring runs helped LSU (5-0) amass 24 unanswered second-half points.

No. 8 Ohio State 30, Minnesota 7

MINNEAPOLIS - Chris Wells rushed for 116 yards and two touchdowns, and the Ohio State defense didn’t budge in a victory at Minnesota.

The Buckeyes (5-0) have allowed only 34 points in five easy victories, making life much easier for new quarterback Todd Boeckman.

No. 9 Wisconsin 37, Michigan State 34

MADISON, Wis. - P.J. Hill ran for 155 yards and two touchdowns and Wisconsin (5-0) extended the nation’s longest winning streak to 14.

Maryland 34, No. 10 Rutgers 24

PISCATAWAY, N.J. - Backup quarterback Chris Turner led three second-half scoring drives, Keon Lattimore rushed for 124 yards and a touchdown, and Maryland’s defense shut down Ray Rice.

No. 12 Boston College 24, Massachusetts 14

BOSTON - Andre Callender ran for 115 yards and two touchdowns and Matt Ryan threw for one TD to lead Boston College past its feisty state rival and give the Eagles (5-0) their best start since 1954.

Georgia Tech 13, No. 13 Clemson 3

ATLANTA - Georgia Tech stifled the dynamic running duo of James “Thunder” Davis and C.J. “Lightning” Spiller and took advantage of a stunningly poor performance by Dean Buchholz and the rest of Clemson’s kicking game.

No. 14 Kentucky 45, Florida Atlantic 17

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Andre Woodson threw for a career-high five touchdowns in an easy win but had his NCAA-record streak of consecutive passes without an interception snapped at 325.

No. 15 Georgia 45, Mississippi 17

ATHENS, Ga. - Thomas Brown ran for 180 yards - the most for Georgia in six years - and three touchdowns on runs of 50, 41 and 4 yards.

No. 16 South Carolina 38, Mississippi St. 21

COLUMBIA, S.C. - Freshman Chris Smelley threw for a career-best 279 yards and two touchdowns to lead South Carolina (4-1).

No. 17 Virginia Tech 17, North Carolina 10

BLACKSBURG, Va. - Tyrod Taylor, Branden Ore and Virginia Tech still can’t find their offense, but the defense made big plays.

No. 19 Hawaii 48, Idaho 20

MOSCOW, Idaho - Adam Leonard and Myron Newberry returned interceptions for touchdowns and Hawaii (5-0) overcame a career-high five interceptions by Colt Brennan.

Illinois 27, No. 21 Penn State 20

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Regus Benn returned a kickoff 90 yards for a touchdown and caught a pass for another and the Illinois defense intercepted three passes against Penn State (3-2).

Florida State 21, No. 22 Alabama 14

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - Xavier Lee came off the bench to throw two touchdown passes to De’Cody Fagg, and Antone Smith scored on a 5-yard run.

No. 24 Cincinnati 52, San Diego State 17

SAN DIEGO - Ben Mauk threw four touchdown passes in the second quarter and the Bearcats scored on six of their first seven possessions to rout San Diego State.

No. 25 Nebraska 35, Iowa State 17

LINCOLN, Neb. - I-back Marlon Lucky passed and ran for touchdowns and Bo Ruud scored on an interception return for the second consecutive week.

The Colorado Rockies, of all teams, are giving a clinic on how to charge to the wire in a pennant race.

One of their prime motivations, it seems, is giving longtime first baseman Todd Helton his first postseason experience, much as the Yankees did for Don Mattingly in 1995.

“When you have a player who has meant as much to a franchise as Todd has to the Rockies, and you realize he has never had a chance to be in a playoff, it makes what we are going through mean that much more to me,” Rockies left fielder Matt Holliday told the Rocky Mountain News.

“Most of us have been around three, four years, and we think about the struggles we’ve been through. Todd’s been playing 10 years, waiting for this.”

Helton isn’t the only veteran striving for their first taste of the playoffs. The three active players who have gone the longest without being in the postseason all reached the weekend with a chance to break through: Helton (1,575 games entering Saturday), Jeff Cirillo of Arizona (1,615 games) and Damion Easley of the Mets (1,593 games).

The all-time record for games played without appearing in the postseason is held by none other than Mr. Cub, Ernie Banks, with 2,528.

Notes and quotes

• Cubs rookie catcher Geovany Soto, the most valuable player in the Pacific Coast League, has been so impressive in September (.415 in 41 at-bats) that he might get the bulk of action behind the plate in the playoffs.

One other factor for Lou Piniella to mull: Jason Kendall has thrown out just five of 56 runners in 50 games since joining the Cubs.

• White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen was blunt in telling Chicago reporters that he can’t see Barry Bonds landing with the White Sox:

“My stuff is the ballclub first and the players later. I have been so lucky in the years I’ve been managing, I don’t have anyone above the ballclub. Everyone is equal.

“I don’t know if Barry would like my rules. My rules are everyday rules, whether you are winning or losing. I don’t think he will go by my rules. I don’t know if he’s willing to do that.”

• The Devil Rays, who believe they’re very close to contention despite their 10th straight season of 90-plus losses, could have another impact player on the way.

Manager Joe Maddon said there’s a 50-50 chance that top prospect Evan Longoria, 21, will be their third baseman on opening day next year. They’ve already told Akinori Iwamura, this year’s third baseman, he’ll play mostly second base next spring.

Longoria, the No. 3 overall pick in the 2006 draft out of Long Beach State, hit .299 with 26 homers and 95 runs batted in this past season combined at Class AA Montgomery and Class AAA Durham. In 198 games as a pro, he has a .304 average, 44 homers and 153 RBI.

• One big area of success for the charging Phillies has been their baserunning. They have been successful on 134 of 152 stolen-base attempts, a success rate of 88.2 percent. The major-league record was set by the Orioles in the strike year of 1994, when they were 69 for 82 in stolen bases, an 84.1 percent success rate.

Much of the credit is being given to first-base coach Davey Lopes, hired this season to work with the Phillies’ base runners. In his career, Lopes stole 557 bases and was caught 114 times, an 83.0 success rate.

• News you can’t get anywhere else, courtesy of The Philadelphia Inquirer: Phillies catcher Chris Coste sniffs his bat after fouling off a pitch.

“I grew up in Minnesota and went to the lake a lot,” he told the Inquirer. “And one of my favorite smells was burning wood or burnt leaves.

“There was one time when I first got into pro ball - I don’t know if I was catching or hitting - but either myself or the batter barely nicked the ball on an unfinished bat. And you can smell it, without even putting your nose up to the bat. You could smell that same smell. So the next time I was hitting, I fouled off the ball and I smelled my bat.

“I don’t know if it’s the wood or the leather of the ball. Maybe it’s the combination of both. But I think when I first did it, I might have hit a home run in that at-bat. So it’s maybe 50 percent superstition, 50 percent because I just like the smell. … It reminded me of days when I was a kid.”

• St. Louis manager Tony La Russa was adamant that he didn’t order the beaning of Prince Fielder, an incident that set off fireworks between the Brewers and Cardinals.

“I swear on my animals,” said La Russa, a noted animal lover. “That’s all I can do.”

A little disclosure here. I’m a big Rich Brooks fan.

When they threw a surprise retirement party for me two years ago in Oregon, Brooks went out of his way to be there. We played in the same foursome at Tokatee Golf Club up the McKenzie River from Eugene.

Brooks is a common man with uncommon ability to compete. Two holes up on the back nine, I suggested that it was such a beautiful day and such a special occasion that I didn’t care if I won, Brooks grunted a few times and went about catching me, winning on the final hole.

He’s 66 years old now, a time when many have retired, but he is competing at the highest level, coaching Kentucky, college football’s 14th-ranked team.

We can learn from Brooks, who coached at Oregon from 1977-94. We can learn that in college football it takes time.

Who thought Brooks could turn Kentucky into a fledgling national power? He took over the program five years ago when it was on probation, down on scholarships and talent - a Southeastern Conference doormat.

“The SEC is like playing in the Pac-10 with four or five USCs,” said Brooks of the shadow cast by programs like Alabama, Tennessee, Florida, Louisiana State, Georgia and Auburn.

Already this year, his Kentucky team (5-0) has beaten Louisville and Arkansas. Saturday it was Florida Atlantic, but in the weeks ahead are games at South Carolina and at home against LSU and Florida.

The miracle isn’t that Brooks has won, but that he was given the chance to win. After three years at Kentucky, his record was 9-25. He was too old, too conservative, too West Coast, too whatever.

It took some staunch support from a couple of important boosters and a vote of confidence from the players to convince the university to stick with him, as it had done at Oregon where he had only three winning seasons in his first 10.

Louisville columnist Rick Bozich wrote recently, “Brooks has done the good things a coach asks his players to do: persevere, grind, believe, build, dream and now win. He has convinced his team to think about what will go right, not what might go wrong.”

At Oregon, he got the Ducks to the Rose Bowl for the only time in the past 50 years. He did it without Nike’s money or influence. He did it because he knew how to evaluate talent and how to put a staff together.

And, of course, because the Huskies decided to pass instead of run from inside the Oregon 10-yard line in 1994.

The same coaching qualities have worked at Kentucky on what Brooks assures us is a much faster track than the Pac-10.

“You play in packed stadiums every week, stadiums that seat more than 70,000,” Brooks said. “The intensity and year-round attention to football is amazing. We have three talk-radio stations in Lexington. When I walk out of a recruit’s home and turn on the radio in my car, there is someone on the radio reporting where I’ve just been.”

In college football, Brooks said he thinks it takes a coach at least four seasons to be fairly evaluated. While Oregon was sticking with him, schools like Oregon State and California and Stanford were turning over coaches every couple of years. He cringed when Tyrone Willingham was fired after three years at Notre Dame.

It took Brooks 13 years to get the Ducks into a bowl game. And longer than that to get Phil Knight, the founder of Nike, excited about his alma mater.

The only job he didn’t get the time was as head coach of the St. Louis Rams. Despite improvement in two seasons, he was fired when the owner had a chance to get Dick Vermeil. Brooks went to Atlanta, where he was defensive coordinator on a Super Bowl team.

His pedigree in football always seemed to be more than his profile.

Brooks wasn’t anybody’s darling. He just knew what he was doing.

Why continue to coach?

“I love winning a game on the road you aren’t supposed to win, silencing the crowd,” he said. “And I love helping young men mature.”

As difficult as it is trying to win in the SEC, Brooks said his rebuilding at Oregon was more difficult.

“At Kentucky, they had really good facilities as well as a good fan base,” he said. “At Oregon, the facilities were nonexistent. They had nothing. Oregon was a track and basketball school.”

Kentucky, of course, is the basketball school. Who would have thought in his time he would outlast the respective basketball coaches at Oregon and Kentucky, Dick Harter and Tubby Smith?

While the competition for talent might be greater in the SEC than it was in the Pac-10, Brooks said there is more talent at hand, that within a 10-hour drive of Lexington is half the country’s population.

“We don’t beat Ohio State or Georgia on a lot of kids,” said Brooks, “but there are an awful lot of players in those states, kids for us to evaluate and recruit, kids who can help us win in this conference.”

Brooks has a four-year deal with a university option of another year. He makes $1 million a year. He lives all but three weeks of the year in Lexington, but still has a home overlooking the McKenzie River near Eugene.

How long will he coach?

“Absolutely no idea,” he said, “but I think the decision to retire will be mine.”

A way for a competitor to go out.

Comments for Blaine Newnham: sports@seattletimes.com

As a flight attendant for United Airlines for 40 years, Renton resident Peggi Galster grew accustomed to airport noise and loud planes.

“When I was working, I would cease a conversation when the engines started,” Galster said.

But at her home in the Kennydale neighborhood, Galster says she has to cover her ears when planes fly overhead.

“Renton is shaped like a bowl, and the sound bounces out off the water like it’s a megaphone,” she said.

Galster, like many who live in her Kennydale neighborhood, say noise from planes that fly into and out of Renton Municipal Airport can be unbearable at times. Several proposals to expand the city’s airport has Galster and many more worried that their noise nuisance could become a nightmare.

Galster and a dozen others shared similar stories at a community meeting Wednesday night in Renton. Renton and Mercer Island have agreed to split the cost of the $130,000 study to measure how noise from the airport affects residents in the cities.

Renton city leaders will use the results, expected early next year, to help it create a plan for expansion of the airport.

The study will be conducted by Harris Miller Miller & Hanson, a consultant group out of Massachusetts that studies noise and vibration control.

Mary Ellen Eagan, who will lead the study said the meeting helped identify the needs of the community and determine the scope of the study.

Residents were briefed on the three master-plan alternatives to develop the airport site, which range from recreational to commercial in scope.

Wednesday’s meeting comes months after Renton City Council postponed choosing a master plan for the airport, amid growing backlash from Mercer Island and Renton residents. Residents from both cities complained that the council had not considered community feedback when drafting the three alternatives.

Karen Johnson: 253-234-8605 or karenjohnson@seattletimes.com

COLUMBIA, S.C. - For months, 11 folders of old papers rescued from his parents’ closet sat in Thomas Willcox’s SUV. He then realized some were signed by Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee and might be valuable.

They were: Three letters written by Lee during the Civil War sold at auction Saturday for $61,000. It’s not the record $630,000 a Lee item sold for in 2002, but it’s not bad.

The letters were among more than 400 family documents Willcox put up for auction after a protracted fight with the state over their ownership.

LONDON - The NHL opened its season on the banks of the River Thames - and as far as the Los Angeles Kings were concerned, this was hockey country.

“I love London,” said Kings center Mike Cammalleri, who scored two power-play goals Saturday in a 4-1 victory over the defending champion Anaheim Ducks. “It was good to us tonight.”

This was the fourth time the league has begun its season outside North America, with the other three in Japan (1997, 1998 and 2000). The two California teams play the second game of the series today.

“It felt like a North American hockey crowd,” Cammalleri said. “There wasn’t much difference - a couple of waves, like soccer, which was fun to watch.”

The trip to The O2 Arena was different from the usual drive along the congested freeways of Southern California.

“I don’t remember taking a boat up a river to get to the game very often,” said Kings defenseman Rob Blake, who scored a goal.

Kings rookie Jonathan Bernier made 26 saves.

“I don’t think you could’ve expected a better game from a 19-year-old goaltender,” Kings coach Marc Crawford said.

The game did not get off to the smoothest start. After the U.S. and British anthems, the lights failed to come on. Players skated around, but were told to go to the locker rooms. The light slowly returned, and the players did as well after about 10 minutes.

“I think we had a lot of time to look around right at the start when they were trying to get the lights back on,” Crawford said. “I tried to soak it all in, all the different jerseys in the crowd.”

Notes

• Daniel Sedin contributed a goal and an assist and twin brother Henrik had three assists as the Vancouver Canucks closed their exhibition season with a 5-4 win over the Oilers in Edmonton. The Canucks were 4-2-2 in exhibition games.

• Center James Sheppard, 19, signed with the Minnesota Wild, meaning the 2006 first-round draft pick will be on the ice opening night instead of returning to his junior team in Nova Scotia.