Traveler’s Practical Joke...

Early on in his racing career, while he was rapidly making a name for himself, a younger Traveler (Still merely 'Brian Sands' at this time.) devised one of the most complicated jokes he ever was able to perpetrate without the use of time travel.

This elaborate jibe was done at the expense of another racer with what Traveler found to be the unusually hilarious name of Phil McCrackin.

This name, Phil McCrackin, was not only funny in English but, oddly enough, in 124 other major Galactic languages recieving the race in their various systems, for exactly the same reason. Traveler's grand practical joke was this:

His goal was to get the two the famous galactic announcers that called the race to use Phil McCrackin's name in the manner he considered hilarious, live and repeatedly during a race as many times as possible. The hardest thing about pulling this off would be explaining the joke to his fellow racers, convincing them why it was funny, getting them to all go along with it...

Basically, his challenges were myriad however, to be known to have perpetrated such an elaborate ruse against a fellow racing driver and for no other reason than his slightly hilarious name, was good enough for Traveler. He began to formulate what he wanted to happen...

Phil McCrackin, Phil McCrackin...he tossed the name around in his in his mind. That was the fun thing about the dude so that's what he wanted to base the joke around.

He decided to shower. He did his best thinking and planning under streaming hot water and the hotel he was currently in had excellent, perpetually hot showers in bathrooms full of bottles of designer liquids to clean and refresh. Plus, of course, a bevy of towels and a plush robe.

In short order he was relaxing on a padded bench rubbing soaps into his skin with a sponge. He had shapped his hair into a mohawk. Over the bathroom's speakers thumped energizing beats he found quite excellent and although they contained no words, Traveler had no problem coming up with lyrics of his own.

He was using a sponge on a stick as a microphone rapping along to the beat that was on.

"Phil McCrackin

Phil McCrackin

Tomorrow we'll be on the track 'an

I, I wanna play a joke on his stupid ass

But I gotta make sure dat I still

Pass

His stupid ass

On da track wit Phil McCrack...'

He stopped rapping when he realized coming up with rhyming lyrics was diverting him from thinking of his joke.

"It has to have to do with his name..." Traveler said to himself as he washed shampoo from his eyes just as it began to sting them.

Once he was clean, completely rinsed and free of soap, he sat on the shower's padded bench, tilted all of its heads to massage him at various angles, turned the water to very nearly scalding hot, sat and thought.

Seventeen minutes later the idea hit him and bloomed across his face in the form of thin lipped smile.

"Oh wow... This'll be good." he said aloud and promptly shutdown the shower.

Silk Autosound and Vox Nounzer were two very popular media personalities that covered various galactic racing classes, types and teams. Traveler knew that the pair would be calling this race. The idea that the shower helped bloom in his brain was, throughout the race, have the two use Phil McCrackin's name in various hilarious sentences, as often as possible.

"Car number fifty-five has taken an aggressive posture to Phil McCrackin!" said Traveler, imitating Vox Nounzer, the male of the pair. His mirthful laughter filled his hotel room as he began dressing.

Now that he had decided upon this prank, he had to plan how to pull it off. He would require co-conspirators which would have to be fellow racers to set up the elaborate linguistic joke. But, he was now determined to pull it off. Afterall, the replay of the race would be recorded for posterity. People generations from now watching this race would hear how it all went down.

This brought another, important thought to Traveler's mind. Other than the joke, this race has to be spectacular. A real nail-biter to the very end with a battle for podium places between key teams. Traveler laughed aloud again because the very mechanics of the joke infiltrating his intellect would ensure an exciting race from the starting cannon to the ubiquitous checkered flag. A quality contest was basically built into it or, in another way, because of it.

Traveler hurried himself to leave his room and put his silly machinations into action.

The first thing he had to do was get his own team in on the joke and that began with Mr. Bright, The Flat Earth Racing Team chief of basically everything.