TWO NEW NTSC MEMBERS

    Yes, two new members to NTSC this week, lets take a look to see who is joining the site:

    Our first new member is Peter Hurtgen from U.S.A, he uses Bowser for all his times, so we should see him improve his times pretty quick with the speed from now on. So far he is ranked at #57 on the NTSC Players' List with a Semi-Pro A overall standard!

    Our second new member is from Canada, his name is Martin Morrisette. He is entering as a Pro C overall standard karter and is #55 on the NTSC Players' List.

UPDATES THIS WEEK

    What can I say about this week?? Fight of the century over KB1, KB2 WRs killed........ It never ends!! Jamie White, the U.S Champion has karted like mad and hit another long list of PRs. If there is a karter who might possibly challenge Laflamme for the #1 spot someday, it could be Jamie if it is not Stanley Jeram. Jamie fought with everything he had for the KB1 WRs, Laflamme took them back, then Jamie took them again, Laflamme improved them, but in the end, Jamie White grabbed them with both hands in time for the update:   0'53"31 and a new fastlap WR of 0'10"19!!! A big barrier was broken on Koopa Beach 2..... Last week it was questionable if someone would one day break 1'00" there. Raphael Braun, the Swiss Champion and holder of the PAL WR of KB2 knows that it is possible, so Jamie White answered our question with his new WRs of 0'59"84 and 0'11"47!!! He has reached GOD standard overall to make him the 4th NTSC GOD standard karter. Simon Laflamme's effort on KB1 was still great with times just behind the current WRs. He did stick to MC4 for more 1'38" times. Still quite a bit of room left, it is all up to putting 5 good laps together. His WR now stands at 1'38"32!! Jamie White was not the only one to reach GOD standard overall, as Michael Jongerius this week makes himself the second PAL GOD standard karter! He made quite a few nice PRs, but the ones standing out were his CI1 WRs just a bit faster than the previous ones held by Sami Çetin. They now stand at 0'59"85 and 0'11"74!

    This week we see the return of an old friend. After 5 years of inactivity, from Dirk Wegener's old SMK site we welcome UK PAL Version karter Brendan McLoughlin back on his return to SMK! It was quite a shock to receive an e-mail from him because he was added to this site after gathering his times from previous sites, I never e-mailed him before. Now that we are in contact, we look forward to hearing of his improvements. He has already left a mark with 8 new PRs, cutting enough off the SR to place him at Master A standard overall! Franck Mazieres is really getting back into SMK now, with 15 new PRs he passes two karters on the Players' List. He remains at King C, but it won't be long before he climbs higher. Andrew Kent had a bit of trouble with a few races, but cut some points off with PRs on VL1 and CI2. He is now within close range of becoming Legend G overall, keep up the great work Andrew! Joseph Hurtgen improved two PRs and cut off some points off the SR. His VL2 time is looking very nice!

ARCHIBALD LEFEVRE'S PROOF OF TIMES

    Archibald Lefevre has made a proof page of his SMK times recently. The link can be found at the SMK Proof page, he has some pictures and a few videos there.

TWO NEW PAL MEMBERS

    We now have two new PAL Players this week!

    Firstly we got an e-mail from Maurice Visser, who is a great SMK player from the Netherlands. He seems really motivated and is looking to improve his PRs soon. He has had a VL problem but this will be sorted in no time. His overall standard is Elite B and he is #34 on the PAL Players' List.

    Our second e-mail was from a super fast MKSC player, that is none other than Peter Toch from Belgium! With his success in MKSC, it is likely that he will destroy his times easily now in SMK, he already has BC3 lap to Legend G! He is currently Master A and #47 on the PAL Players' List. Not too far ahead is Wouter Wynen, so Peter may be able to become the #1 SMK Player in Belgium! Peter is already PRing as we speak, so expect some new times from him next week!

THIS WEEK'S UPDATES

    This week has been amazing in terms of the number of active karters!!! Jamie White has been at it again and changing the way the game is played, after working out detailed strategies on DP1, he went and took the WRs there with the 1'15"00 barrier broken for the first time to 1'14"94 and a super fast lap of 0'14"72!!! He had last week worked hard on CI1 and knew he could break 58 seconds there and made it with 0'57"90 and 0'11"39 NTSC World Records, that lap was very tight! He even managed to later tie Simon's CI2 lap WR of 0'13"33*! He didn't stop there as he also took the MC2 1-lap WR to 0'14"67!! This outstanding performance jumped Jamie high up in the SR score closer to Stanley Jeram and the #2 spot on NTSC! Stanley Jeram fought back well this week with his few PRs he made. He too had a go at DP1 and made a good 1'15" time with a lap very close to the new WR! We have a new Champion of France! Jérôme Gava made it to Legend A past Nicolas Clementy! It is unsure if his title will last, because the difference in SR is pretty close between the two, so expect a battle to continue! Gava drove a great new PAL WR for VL1 5-lap, it was certain this one was gonna go down soon, and it did. It now stands at 0'55"89!

    The competition in France is still fierce! Nicolas Clementy, having lost his #1 in France position has still managed to make some decent PRs. His GV2 is a fast GOD time now, and he cut some good chunks off MC4 and Rainbow Road. He is now just behind the Legend A mark, he will reach it very soon! Pierre L'Hoëst is going well with a lot of new records cutting a lot from his SR score once again. He climbed to Legend B this time, and looks ready to make his way to the top French Karters. Franck Mazières has had a successful week with his new records because they were his weaker courses and he managed to cut a lot of SR points off! 9 points from VL1, 21 from VL2! and 13 off KB2. He climbed up to King B overall standard, #14 on the PAL Players' List and the 6th fastest Karter in France!

    The Pereda/Kent battle still continues! Sébastien Pereda has been trying to catch Andrew Kent and continue his quest for Legend G. He submitted 7 new PRs this week, one was a Legend G time, and the others were all Legend F! A great performance and again only points short of Andrew Kent who first of all this week decided to try out some of the trick times. The VL2 trick was completed for both 5-lap and 1-lap with some decent times so far! He went on to the normal tracks and broke 1'07" on GV1 along with some other great times. He hit his first Mushroom Cup Legend G time on BC1 5-lap and made an Australian record and Australian record tie on GV3 5-lap and 1-lap respectively. He is now only 6 points short from becoming a Legend G karter, go for it Andrew! Michael Jongerius continued to chop more SR of in the GOD standard now. His greatest achievement are double GOD times for MC4, which he worked very hard on and made some near misses. Double GOD times on CI2 and and an improvement on the lap time were also PRed. His MC1 times are shaving down towards the 1'01"50 mark and closer to the GOD time for the lap.

    Serge Ludescher was back with more great PRs, 12 in total. They ranged from Elite to Legend times except for his great GOD lap effort on KB2!! He has climbed up to #26 on the PAL Players' List and is King E overall by standard. Raphael Braun also submitted a few PRs, but wasn't as active. He came close to cutting points off VL2 and Rainbow, but didn't quite make it. He did however cut down a point from his new KB2 lap and 3 points from Ghost Valley 3! His overall standard is getting slightly faster, so he is making his way towards Gerard Roodhorst. Brendan McLoughlin is back again with a few PRs! This week he focused on Ghost Valley 1, without the platform jump. He had a bit of difficulty improving his times further than high Elite level, but that will come in time. That is currently above his overall standard, so the PRs were indeed very fast for now!

    Joseph Hurtgen made some little improvements, but each of them more or less cut off a point or so despite the fact that they were as little as 0.02 faster. This was quite handy as it lowered his SR even further, so we will see him get closer to Legend D soon. Kent Marten sent improvements for Donut Plains 1, the 5-lap he cut under 1'20" and the 1-lap was almost an Elite time, in the high 15s! He is getting closer to the player above him.

FOUR NEW MEMBERS!!

    An amazing week with 4 new members! Took a bit of time to enter them all but I got it done. Three new PAL Players and one new NTSC:

    First up was the new NTSC karter, Brian Thomas from U.S.A. He is already at King G standard overall and has set some spectacular times, including a sub 1'01" on MC1! He enters the NTSC Players' List at #25.

    Our second new member is from Sweden, a PAL Player and his name is Hampus Lindin. He will eventually get his brother to join the fun soon aswell. He has driven some great times so far and enters the PAL Players' List with an Elite D overall standard, a #38 PAL World Ranking and #6 in Sweden!

    The third new member was a recruit by Andrew Kent, his name is Paul Borkowski, also from Australia. An SMK fan for a long time wanting to enter the rankings. However, Andrew stated that he has been retired for many years, but we will see what happens, you never know he may return someday, like many of us do. Paul is ranked at Elite D overall and #39 on the PAL Players' List.

    I have been chatting to our 4th new member on AIM on and off for a while and now he will be entered, Florian Stern is entering SMK as the 3rd fastest Karter in Germany. He has set some great times including a 1'01" for MC1! He has a few Legend times and even a GOD time already! It looks as though he may have a chance to become #1 in Germany someday. He enters the PAL Players' List at #23 with a King D overall standard!

UPDATES THIS WEEK

    A lot more activity once again and several new WRs on NTSC!! Jamie White climbed to #2 in the World on NTSC after passing Stanley Jeram. He took many WRs including BC1 to 1'27"28, 0'17"25 (previously held by Harrington). He went from course to course, next it was MC2 lap which went down as far as 0'14"56!! Then... CI2 lap, looking perfect by Laflamme but is now 0'13"30!! He played some other courses and even went sub 1'00" on MC1! He finished up on the BCs, with BC2 lap down to 19"80 (possibility of 1'39" 5-lap is getting greater!) and BC3 lap at 0'17"61!! He has a crazy SR now, and it looks as though Simon Laflamme will have to start defending his #1 spot soon, cos Jamie is on fire! Simon Laflamme took World Records off Jeram and eventually he was only left with 2. DP3 needed improving and 1'18"s can and will be done soon, so far Simon drove down to 1'19"56 and 0'15"64, he made a good attempt at BC1 but his greatest moment was the BC3 5-lap WR!! He took the lap but it was already taken by Jamie. On PAL, Pierre L'Hoëst broke the 0'59"00 barrier on KB1!! His new WR is 0'58"94! He hit some other great PRs aswell and is starting to catch up to Nicolas Clementy.

    Peter Toch has had an amazing week! Since his entry his first target was to pass Wouter Wynen for the #1 spot in Belgium, then after that go for King G overall. He has re-written almost every time on his whole profile this week and we are not talking small cuts! His VL1 lap went to GOD standard, and he even had a few Legends! His BC3 lap is getting faster now. Peter was Master A last week, this week he has passed through all the Elites from Master A and #50 to King G and #32 in the World! He is now also ranked as Super Mario Kart Time Trial Champion of Belgium! You also got the POW for this Peter! Well done! Jérôme Gava submitted 3 PRs this week and is pulling ahead a bit more from Nicolas Clementy and making his way to the GOD overall standard!

    Andrew Kent has hit a great barrier this week, and that was to become the first Australian Legend Karter! He had a lot of trouble with GV1 but made some great times with a 1/5 jump! In the end it was the Australian record tie with Ademir Cortes on Rainbow Lap that did it! He also made a new Australian record for the 5-lap, well done there! All this is on tape. He will look at trying to catch former World Champion Edwin Peeters next. Michael Jongerius also made a PR on KB2 5-lap cutting a few points off. Lars Nouwen is back! He only made 2 PRs so far, but looks dangerous already! His Legend D time on BC1 fastlap proved to be effective enough to challenge some karters above him on the list, we look forward to hearing from him!

    The Hurtgen's have been karting a lot this week, Joseph Hurtgen making great progress and reaching Legend D with his great efforts in many courses. He is moving up to Kelly Malo now, so we will see how that goes over the next few weeks. Peter Hurtgen made a long list of PRs and cut a total 226 points off the SR score! His new standard is Pro B and he stands at #56 on the NTSC Players' List. This is a great climb, keep on karting! Lastly, Kent Marten passed a player on the list with a few PRs, he is making good progres now on DP1, he has been at that course for a while.

NEW MEMBER

    We have a new recruit from Matthieu Cruypenninck this week, his name is Eric Larçon and is also a PAL karter from France. He enters the PAL Players' List at #65 and Expert E. Keep on Karting Eric!

UPDATES THIS WEEK

    This week has proven to be yet another great one with many super-active karters killing their times! New WRs have been made, but who made some WRs this time round on PAL?? I'll just blurt it all out now and say that I (Sami Çetin) have been playing on and off this week and have not only PRed, not only made a WR, but an improvement on something which I thought wouldn't be improved! Mario Circuit 1 1-lap of 0'12"08 (PAL WR!!!) I broke the 0'12"10 barrier, amazing stuff! I tried out many other courses, I won't mention how CI2 and KB2 went, cos they were embarassing! I ended up in a WR tie with Clementy on GV3 as my other PR at 0'14"98*! Altogether I cut off an SR point, what a nice comeback! Jamie White again hit a lot of PRs and his SR is under -3! His latest WRs are for BC2 5-lap at 1'40"77 and VL1 Lap at 0'10"05 (beating Stinson)! It seems definite that the lap will go under 10 seconds soon. Simon Laflamme also wants BC2 to go faster and will be trying for the sub 1'40"00, but it does need time. So far he has taken the lap to 0'19"79!! He spent some time on GV1 also, and is maing some nice results including a good attempt at beating Gallo's time, just getting that 5th jump with consistent fast laps could do it! He is nearing the -4 SR score!

    The Super Hurtgen Bros. have been at it again, but this time Peter Hurtgen did most of the karting, destroying most of his times this week. His greatest achievement ater some tutoring from Joseph was a fantastic GOD time for CI2 lap!!! For his standard that is an amazing thing to achieve!! He also made some nice King times in a few places, so it looks as though this karter is well on the way to becoming one of the best at the rate he is going! Peter's overall standard is now Master D overall and is #52 on the NTSC Players' List. Joseph Hurtgen made 2 improvements, one for MC1 5-lap and CI1 1-lap. A few more points were cut down from his SR score.

    Maurice Visser sent in his improvements this week, and they were really good! He PRed on almost every course with some fast times including GOD fastlap for VL1 lap! He even hit some of his first Legend times on some of the courses. His SR score has now dropped to King E overall standard and he has reached #24 on the PAL Player's List!! Lars Nouwen is back again for some more PRs! He made some successful attempts at many courses, the highlights being more Legend times now than before! He passed many karters (Chabanis, Kühn, Cortes) and reached #17 on the PAL Player' List and an overall standard of King B!! Michael Jongerius attempted to beat the long standing WR of Edwin Peeters on GV1 5-lap, so far he hit the 2/5 jump but fell short by some hundreths. He got a point of the SR.

    Peter Toch played a lot again this week and tried to extend his way through the King standards. Yet again he chopped large amount of SR with some nice times. MC1 is going very well for him now, he may be able to break the 1'02" barier soon, and maybe make his way to the Legends sooner than we can imagine! His overall standard is now at King E and he is #26 on the PAL Players' List! Hampus Lindin, our recent Swedish entry to the SMK Time Trial site has already been PRing. He sent 12 new records in that cut a fair amount of SR off. He seems well motivated to reach higher ranks, we will see how he goes on his way to Joakim Alderborn (Champion of Sweden), it will be interesting to see. Hampus took his SR score down to Elite B overall standard, he is #37 on the PAL Player's List and now #4 in Sweden!

    Over in France competition is still strong! Julien Chabanis has returned with some new records, 10 in total and chopped off 20 SR points climbing him up to #18 on the PAL Players' List. Matthieu Cruypenninck also played this week after recruiting Eric with 6 King times and two Legend times. He cut some points of the SR and is in the King C overall standard. François Mangeol also returned after a while to set some new records, he improved 3 this week and cut 4 points off his SR score. Franck Mazières also improved 3 records and cut 6 points down off the SR. He climbed a position on the PAL Players' List up to #13!!

Continue to May 2002