DUARTE, Calif. - It's dawn on a fall Saturday, and Tim Estes, tired and grumpy, has been at work for two hours.

One of America's longest and least-known winning streaks is at risk.

On this Saturday, the Rain Bird Corp. float - Estes' best hope for extending his victory run - is about to travel down a quiet street in Duarte, its critical final inspection before it glides down Pasadena's Colorado Boulevard in the Rose Parade on New Year's Day.

Estes snaps at two neighborhood children who have climbed onto the float ("Don't you know you're not insured?") and then apologizes to their father. "I'm sorry to yell. But this is no low-pressure thing."

For two consecutive years, the Rain Bird float has earned the Sweepstakes Trophy - given to the most beautiful entry in the world's most-watched parade. (No company has won three straight titles in a generation.)

But Estes' streak as a builder is even longer. For the past nine years, entries created by his Fiesta Parade Floats have come away with the top prize.

"This is a dynasty greater than the New York Yankees," says Greg Lewis, a Los Angeles flower broker. "And it's Tim who really holds it together."

For Estes, winning the Sweepstakes Trophy takes about 15 months of work, a big budget and a team of eccentric talents, some of whom seem to delight in tormenting the boss.

Each brings a strange genius, a love of the 114-year-old parade and a willingness to sacrifice financial self-interest.

Estes, 47, builds the floats out of a small warehouse in Duarte. He considers it a good year when he can pay his insurance premium ($120,000 and rising fast), pay his twin daughters' college tuition, and take home a $75,000 profit on annual revenue of $2.5 million.

"Whatever the challenges, Tim never stifles us in any innovative or creative way," says Jim Hynd, floral director and part owner of Fiesta. "We always go to the max and go for the home run. And he is willing to suffer the personalities and the consequences."

In early 1996, Rain Bird Corp. applied to the Tournament of Roses for a spot in the parade. Arthur Ludwick, senior vice president and a member of the family that owns the company, saw participation as a way to link Rain Bird - which is based in Glendora and is the world's largest manufacturer of irrigation equipment - with environmental protection. Parade officials, eager to have a large local company compete, accepted the bid from the company, which then paid its $4,000 entry fee.

Ludwick hired Estes, insisting that the float feature animals (preferably endangered) and illustrate Rain Bird's message: "Intelligent Use of Water."

Four titles in six years has put Rain Bird on the elite list of perennial prize winners - along with Honda, Kodak and a few others - that are unofficially guaranteed a spot near the front of the parade. (Other companies' floats rotate position year to year.)

The select status reflects budget; Rain Bird enters super-floats that cost about $300,000. Most corporate sponsors spend only half that.

Designer Raul Rodriguez has built his career around the parade, dreaming up float concepts for Estes and two other float builders.

Rodriguez began dreaming up concepts for Rain Bird's 2003 float in October last year. One had a rain forest theme, another featured a galloping horse, and a third involved a giant tree with a bear.

At a meeting with Rain Bird officials in February, though, the ideas got a cool reaction. As the meeting continued, Rodriguez sketched furiously. Egyptian and other African images emerged. What about showing a scene where water brought life to a dry landscape?

Back at home, he drew elephants, giraffes, a zebra and birds playing by a stream with small waterfalls - matching Rain Bird's "use of water" message. He included a couple of young elephants to fit this year's tournament theme of youth and dreams.

Rain Bird officials approved Rodriguez's design.

First, a three-dimensional Styrofoam model is made on the warehouse floor where the float will take shape. The chassis from last year's float will be used.

Estes must abide by many rules. He must earn approval for the design and then, in April, appear before the Design Variance Committee, the tournament's version of a zoning board.

Estes begins asking for a series of exemptions. There will be taped music (that is common, but it needs committee approval). And the float's giraffe and acacia trees will soar 32 feet, far above the 17-foot-4-inch clearance where the parade passes under the Foothill Freeway. Estes explains that he will design the giraffe and trees to bend so they can squeeze under the overpass.

Then there is the water. It figures prominently in the nightmares of parade officials - specifically, a float so heavy with water that its brakes fail and it slams into the crowd.

Estes fields questions about generators and water pumps. Will the elephants spray the crowd with water from their trunks? After 20 minutes, the hearing is over. His variance arrives in the mail the following week.

With Estes now working six-day weeks, the building begins. There are eight months to go.

Fiesta has 24 full-time employees - more than any other builder.

Estes' crew starts by welding a steel frame onto the chassis. One man does the "rod work," setting up metal frames for individual pieces from elephants to birds. Another covers the float in wire mesh. Holes in the wire are filled with a white, fibrous substance during a process called "cocooning."

Finally, a polyurethane foam is sprayed over the float, creating a coat 2 or 3 inches thick. Vials for flowers may be stabbed into the foam. Estes installs the Chevrolet engine, handles the engineering work and tinkers endlessly.

Working from a drafting board in a tiny room next to his office, he sketches a system that will handle more than 1,500 gallons of water, five waterfalls and 24 high-pressure misting nozzles.

Even before construction is complete, Estes must shepherd the float through the first of two road tests. Shortly after that, floral director Hynd begins work, climbing over the float with a tape measure and a note pad.

Rose Parade floats must be covered entirely in flowers or other vegetation, dried or fresh.

After months of thinking and a week of measuring and planning, Hynd retreats into his office and produces a plan for the float's 990 square feet.

Hynd will use thousands of vibrant yellow giant oncidium orchids to create the acacia trees. Giraffes will be done in millet seed, palm fiber and seaweed, elephants in mosses. To create the feeling of aridity, Hynd orders orange Mercedes roses from a farm in Israel.

But before the flowers are added, the Rain Bird float must pass the "T2," the final test.

"Turn it on," Estes says, still grumpy as the sun comes up.

For the first time on this late fall Saturday, the Rain Bird float springs to life in public. The waterfalls run, with the water recycled through large tanks. The elephants frolic and spray water out of their trunks. The giraffe tilts its head toward a tree.

By 7 a.m., the street next to Fiesta is filled with several teams of Tournament of Roses volunteers. The two teams directly responsible for floats are led by a pair of brothers, Joe and John Delgatto.

The animation of the elephants is good, John Delgatto says during the post-inspection meeting in Fiesta's warehouse.

"Looks like another prize winner," Joe Delgatto whispers to Estes.

Joe Mathews is a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, a Tribune Publishing newspaper.