The Paranormal Looms - 10/19/19 at 4 PM

The SM100 came and went last weekend.  Most notable moment actually came the night before the race when, while camping, it rained 4 inches and my wife and I had a waterfall in our tent.  Not as romantic as it sounds.

But with that foolishness now in the rearview, it occurs to me that in six weeks The Paranormal will be upon us.



Six. Short. Weeks.

But there you are, hiding out in the bathroom at work, slobbing and dribbling and thumbing at your phone, possibly vaping, too busy watching videos of Jolanda Neff slurping three bowls of oatmeal to go back to your desk, and you haven't even found your slutty catboy costume yet.  And it's already September.  This world, she is passing you by.


Doing trail work last week, I found a piece of Paranormal history that I'll share with you here.

It might not look like much to the untrained eye.  But this little relic happens to be the campaign pin that Joanna Krauss wore when she dressed up like Hillary Clinton to match James' Barrack Obama costume, in what was certainly one of the top 10 paranormal team costumes of all time.  The finer details - this campaign pin being just one example - carried the costume, which naturally won the day.

I sit here, banging the keys at 530 AM on a Friday morning because I can't sleep, and I contemplate the miles between that day and this day.  That would have been 2008, the end of the Bush Era, when Clinton and Obama were vying for the democratic ticket to challenge McCain.  At the time, I recall it felt like we were teetering on the very edge of democracy.  How little we knew.  If that feels to you like an entire lifetime ago at this point, you are not alone.

Back to my original point though: your fucking costume.  Pull yourself together.  Get on this.









To assist you, I put together a chart that you can use to better understand the relationship between costume quality and racing performance, various examples, and what I like to call the danger zone.  Please feel free to plot your own variables for alcohol consumption, e-bikes, etc.  This is, after all, a resource for all of us - the people.


Yes, this is also happens to be a paper towel, because genius strikes without notice sometimes.

Outside of that, I have very little to offer you in the way of real advice.  I can tell you that The Paranormal will go live at 4 PM on Saturday 10/19.  Costume check at 3 ish.  Kids race (cover your eyes, Billy) around 230ish?  All of that happening right here at the Rancho Relaxo.

Until then, do as the pros do.  Dress as Goldilocks and shred absolutely everything.

The haunted head awaits you. 
Up, up, up.