Owens, a lawyer and global-warming zealot lacking any scientific expertise, was widely criticized as afanatic and job-killer while he headed the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality.
His middle name testifies to the extreme Methodism of his mother, which he rebelled against in his 1915 depiction of the evangelist Billy Sunday as afanatic.
While some natives approach the race with great seriousness--Nedeau, for example, is such afanatic about saving weight that he tells his crew to cut off the bottoms of their toothbrushes--Comeaux injects some fun.