TWO LOCAL TEAMS REVVING UP FOR SOAPBOX RACE

0 Comments | Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Sep 23, 2007 | by DENNIS HUSPENI

Excuse Tom Valentine's wife if she thinks her husband's life is in the toilet this week.

Actually, it is.

Valentine will be sitting in a soapbox racer shaped like a giant toilet Saturday at the Red Bull Soapbox Race in Seattle.

Valentine's team, appropriately dubbed "The Crapsters," is one of two from Colorado Springs heading to the West Coast for the race.

Al Brody and his Lincoln Log racer left Saturday, with a planned pit stop in Las Vegas for a bicycle show.

"We just needed something fun to do this summer," Valentine said.

Ironically, both teams have members who work at Hewlett-Packard - - which they didn't know until recently -- and their headquarters were within a halfmile of each other. They are among 46 teams, out of about 300 applicants, who will send racers to the downtown Seattle course. Brody's team, with Mitch Brown, almost won last year's race in St. Louis. They finished second despite the fact they had the fastest racer.

Teams are judged not only on speed, but creativity and showmanship.

"We're doing it for the glory," said Brody, an avid bicyclist and former Colorado Springs City Council candidate.

Valentine enlisted the help of his father -- a rocket scientist retired from NASA -- to design the toilet racer.

"We absolutely loved it," he said of the design his father sent.

Despite getting local businesses as sponsors, Valentine said they shelled out a pretty penny to build the soapbox. It was worth it, though, and they haven't even raced yet.

"We put it on the trailer and drove it around town," Valentine said.

"People would just gather around us, taking pictures with their cell phones and posing in front of it.

"Everyone loves it."

Brody's racer looks like a Lincoln Log cabin, complete with "penny" wheels.

His team donated last year's prize money, and matching donations, totalling about $17,000, to the American Red Cross.

"It's just fun to get together and create something," Brody said.

Teams get one shot at the Seattle course, which includes a banked turn.

The crowds at the free event are estimated to be between 20,000 and 30,000, according to Red Bull officials.

Brody has gotten the Log up to 32 mph, but thinks it can go faster on the real course.

"A lot of these teams are frustrated engineers who get together with artists and theatrical people," Brody said.

"I just like to build things that go fast," said Brown, who has also gone about 80 mph on his "shovel racer" that speeds down snowy mountains.

This year's winner can pick between $7,500 or a NASCAR experience.

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0110 or dennis.huspeni@gazette.com