NEW MEMBERS

    We have two new karters this week, one for PAL, one for NTSC.

    Firstly on PAL we received an e-mail from a new French Karter, Joann Mondou. Joann has entered the PAL Players' List at #79 using Bowser to drive all times and is Semi-Pro D overall standard. Welcome to the community Joann!

    On NTSC we have Mike Bess from U.S.A entering his times at #46 overall ranking on the NTSC Players' List. He already has a pair of Legend times on Rainbow Road! He is currently Elite D overall standard!

THIS WEEK'S UPDATE

    This week's favourite course has been Choco Island 2 after Michael Jongerius discovered that driving to the left hand side of the lake, squeezing through the narrow path and continuing at high speed is possible! Although this proved very difficult for the karters trying, it has been done very well so far, but is looking difficult to combine for a 5-lap time. Michael originally took the WR lap and improved on it bit at a time and made a WR on DP3 lap which was later beaten. He also drove some other very fast PRs that helped to cut down his SR. Sami Çetin was a little busy this week but found time near the end to kart and managed to take the CI2 lap as far down as 0'13"39!! Only a small improvement on the 5-lap was made, but he also took back the DP3 1-lap WR from Michael with 0'15"60!! The NTSC Karters will not be able to take as much off with the CI2 strategy because the lake doesn't slow them down as much anyway. However, there were still improvements. Jamie White hit a new time at 0'13"18, then Simon Laflamme followed with a new 0'13"15 NTSC WR! The WRs didn't end there, as Thomas Harrington was on a quest to take GV1 lap from Stanley Jeram and drove a 0'11"98 lap!

    Kalle Videkull was another PAL Player to have successfully made the CI2 lap work with a great time of 0'13"89! He also nailed a pair of great VL1 GOD times and many other strong Legend times. He now stands at Legend C overall and is chasing Julien Holmière. He has just passed Gerard Roodhorst for #8 on PAL! Matthew McCarthy has had yet another great week hitting more and more Legend times. He is getting closer to Legend G overall standard and has passed some karters to be #17 on the PAL Players' List! Former Champion of Sweden, Joakim Alderborn said he might be making a return to SMK! He said it was a bit difficult to get back into, but he has PRed on MC1, nearly breaking the 1'02" barrier. Keep on Karting Joakim! Raphael Braun also made one PR, this was for BC3 1-lap, a GOD time.

    Julien Holmière once again kept together a strong list of PRs for this week. His efforts at CI2 were also great! His results so far were 0'13"79 for the 1-lap and an improvement on the 5-lap to go with it. He also pushed more of his times into the GODs including the boost through the last turn on DP1. He has now made it to Legend B overall and is catching up to Pierre L'Hoëst fast! Sébastien Holmière has again been karting a lot this week and although he didn't make a really fast lap yet with the new strategy on CI2, he didnt make a fast set of Legend times there! A few other records in the GV2 and DP2 area went to GOD standards, so we see he is getting faster all round. He passed Steven Zwartjes for #11 on the PAL Players' List and is Legend E overall standard. Franck Mazières hit two GV3 PRs cutting down his SR a little.

    Ray Bergstrom is getting stronger King times now as he moves into the mid Kings at King D overall standard. Two of his PRs this week were even on the GOD standard! He has moved up a few places to #26 on the NTSC Players' List. It has been a great week for Martin Morissette! He has worked on GV1 with hitting the jump more and is getting there now. He also made double GOD times on CI2 and a pair of Legend times for GV3 which he has been doing great on. His VL2 is also looking very fast! He has climbed to #13 on the NTSC Players' List and has passed Guillaume Sylvain making him #4 in Canada! Chris Zueger decided to focus on Mushroom Cup times this week to lower them as much as possible. More of his times are falling into the Elite standards but his GV1 times have gone into the Kings! He now stands at Elite E and #52 on the NTSC Players' List!

NEW PHOTO IN THE GALLERY

    This week Jonathan Bennett sent us his pic that has been added to the SMK Photo Gallery. Keep those pics coming in!

UPDATES FOR THIS WEEK

    Michael Jongerius delivered many new PAL World Records this week, some of which were taken back but he still had five very strong WRs! He started using a new strategy for Mario Circuit 2 that Pierre L'Hoëst had thought up and lowered his times greatly to 1'15"89 and 0'14"66!! He then went on to Choco Island 1 and took the PAL WRs for both 5-lap and 1-lap to 0'59"40 and 0'11"67!! He also hit a great pair of times for MC3 and a nice MC4 lap improvement. His final WR this week was in the VL1 1-lap where he brought the lap down to 0'10"18. Sami Çetin fought back in the last minute with a decent attempt on MC2 lap but to find out he was still not doing the strategy correctly as Pierre's video shows. Sami did defend his Mario Circuit 3 WRs well with new times of 1'31"79 and 0'18"17, and he lowered his MC4 lap to 0'19"52! Jamie White has hit some scary NTSC WRs for Choco Island 1, by taking them further into the 57 second region and continuously chopping those milliseconds off his already crazy lap. His new times stand at 0'57"27 and 0'11"33!!! After a small tip from Simon on KB1 he got the WR lap down to 0'10"07 and also improved the CI2 lap WR down to 0'13"11. Simon Laflamme had earlier hit this KB1 lap to 0'10"08 but this was taken back by Jamie, he also hit a few other PRs including a 51 second time on VL1!

    Three PAL Players took the lead in hitting many PRs this week. We had a return from Paolo Galasso from Switzerland who drove a long list of new records including some Legend and GOD times! His VL1 were indeed looking great! He shot up the ladder to King F overall standard this week and now ranks at #39 on the PAL Players' List. Serge Ludescher (also Switzerland) made his return to SMK this week aswell! With many King times pushing up towards the Legends his times are looking ever faster. His twin KB2 GOD times are looking solid. Serge defended his #2 in Switzerland position from approaching Galasso and is now at King C overall standard with a #30 PAL ranking. Joann Mondou set a big list of PRs this week too since entering the site last week. Joann Mondou's progress is going well with many times into the Master standards and an overall standard now of Pro D and #72 on the PAL Players' List.

    Belgian Champion Peter Toch had a fast improvement over last week by pasing a few players and reaching the Legends! He improved quite a few records over the Mushroom and Flower cups, of which went into the Legends aswell. His KB2 times however are looking very nice! Peter has reached Legend G overall standard and #16 in the PAL World Rankings. Kalle Videkull set some GOD and Legend times to get a bit closer to Legend B overall. His CI2 lap is getting faster now and his GV2 and GV3 times are gaining more ranks in the top times. Marco Olyslager also hit the barrier he wanted this week after driving 6 new PRs over DP1, MC4 and DP3. He managed to reach Elite G overall standard and #62 on the PAL Players' List.

    Back on NTSC we had some other quite active members; Chris Zueger stuck to Flower cup improvements this week and made some good cuts off his SR score climbing him to Elite D overall standard and #44 on the NTSC Players' List. Martin Morissette made a set of small improvements cutting some more off his SR to put him closer to Legend E overall. Ray Berstrom gained a few places to #24 on the NTSC Players' List with some Elite, King and Legend PRs. He will reach the next standard very soon. Jonathan Bennett along with his picture also sent us a new GV1 5-lap time where he cut off a few points with a 1 second improvement.

    Jérôme Gava has a great week after reaching the standard he wanted for a long time! Working on the CI2 lap and some DP1 along with a point off VL1 1-lap helped him to reach a sub 0 SR score making him the 4th GOD standard karter on PAL!! Well done Jérôme!! Matthew McCarthy lost a position this week to Belgian Champion Peter Toch but he still hit a few PRs to take some points down. These were on CI1 and KB1. He is catching Sébastien Pereda pretty fast now. Franck Mazières hit a solid lap on CI2 also using the new strategy and a good pair of Legend times on GV3. These put his SR to Legend E overall passing Steven Zwartjes for #12 on PAL and catching up to Sébastien Holmière now pretty quick. Sébastien had a quieter week with two PRs and a small SR cut. Julien Holmière hit one PR on GV3, a strong 5-lap time that is pushing his SR score closer to Pierre L'Hoëst. Raphael Braun had a go at the CI2 lap this week and cut some SR points off.

NEW MEMBER

    We have a new member to NTSC this week. From U.S.A a new Karter, Mike Aitken. He has driven all of his times with Bowser and enters at Elite G overall standard and #58 on the NTSC Players' List.

UPDATES THIS WEEK

    Koopa Beach 1 has been the main venue this week as Michael Jongerius once again dishes out the new strategy for all of us on PAL to be able to use as the NTSC have. It involves keeping to the islands and gliding across small parts of water to keep high speed and it is indeed faster! PAL WR for 5-lap has dropped 5 seconds and a second has come off the lap! Michael set a pair of great times here which were WRs during the course of the week; he continuously improved them. He also made a great pair of MC4 PRs, but his great VL1 PAL WR is what he held throughout the whole week! It is down to 0'54"46!! Sami Çetin fought back hard against Michael Jongerius at the end of the week to quickly learn the new strats and took back the KB1 WRs to 0'54"16 and 0'10"25!! It didn't stop there as he headed off to MC4 to finish the job, the lap giving much trouble but in the end he produced PAL WRs of 1'38"72 and 0'19"22!! Jamie White also hit a few WRs on NTSC, the first being his craziest yet for CI1 lap with a seemlingly unbeatable time of 0'11"29!!! VL2 5-lap went a bit further to 0'49"58! Simon Laflamme had a good shot at CI1 and took his PRs down a bit, but didn't reach Jamie's times yet. He gained a few points with this.

    Chris Zueger on NTSC has continued his job of running through the courses a cup at a time. He had a go at GV3 but is likely to return there for more next week. His main focus was on Star Cup where he produced many great times, including a few reaching the Legends! He climbed to Elite B overall standard and reached #37 in the World on NTSC. Can he reach the Kings by the next update? We'll see! Martin Morissette is also making fine progress in the Legend ranks. With many new PRs and GOD time improvements he reached Legend E and passed Kevin Booth for #12 on NTSC! Ray Bergstrom is also on a quest of his own, that is to reach the Legends now. He worked on some of his weaker times and reached his goals. He is getting rid of remaining weak standards and is going to hit more Legend times. He climbed to King C overall and climbed the ladder to #22 on NTSC! Jonathan Bennett was the last NTSC karter to be active this week and cut some decent points down with his VL1 PRs.

    Activity in France is once again very exciting! Joann Mondou sent us a long list of PRs again. The things to notice are his great improvements over the Star Cup area! He climbed straight into the Masters with Master F overall standard and a #67 PAL ranking. Archibald Lefevre defended his position in France from another approaching French Karter. He piled up a lot of great improvements including a cut off CI2 lap with the recently found strategy and hit quite a few GOD times! His SR is in Legend A and he is closing in on GOD standard overall. Perhaps an improvement with the new KB1 strategy will see him there! Julien Holmière sent in 7 GOD times which are looking great indeed. He too started on the KB1 driving with a great record of France for the lap well in the 10s near the WR! He follows very closely behind Lefevre and also plans on reaching GOD standard soon! Kalle Videkull made some small improvements but hit some nice GOD times and sorted out a decent BC3 5-lap race aswell. He is getting closer to Legend B overall!

    Peter Toch has had an interesting week aswell as he sends in a few PRs of King and Legend standards that helped him pass a former PAL World Champion, Edwin Peeters for #14 on PAL! Sébastien Holmière sent us 4 new PRs including a good attempt at the CI2 lap with two really great VL1 times. His GV3 lap is also getting better. Pierre L'Hoëst dropped by to improve the MC2 lap with his new strategy and broke into the 14s, cutting a few points down off the SR. Paolo Galasso and Franck Mazières both improved a PR each this week. Franck has also announced that he will let Laurent Meissel resume karting as he is unable to kart for a while and will pass his snes/smk on to him for a while.

VIDEO FILES OF SAMI ÇETIN

    The video files from the tape that Sami Çetin sent to Ben Miller (around 10th September) are now available. You can view them at http://perso.wanadoo.fr/samimovies/. The link will be up on the SMK Proof page aswell.

SMK U.K KARTERS' MEETING

    Sami Çetin went to visit Matthew McCarthy and Richard O'Neill this week and we all karted together discussing strats and showing each other what we could do. It was great fun and we also got some pics of a few times that Sami Çetin done on a few select courses after 20 mins or so karting on each. Hopefully I can get these developed soon (in the hope that they came out okay...) so we can see them.

UPDATES THIS WEEK

    It has been a quieter week with WRs but still great for NTSC World Champion, Jamie White! He improved both of his Vanilla Lake 2 times to some crazy 0'48"57 and 0'09"20 NTSC WRs! He also went to CI2 lap to push it down a little further to 0'13"09! Sami Çetin had a little rest this week except for the karting with McCarthy and O'Neill. He did however get to lower his KB1 lap to 0'10"15!

    NTSC activity was great with our recent entry Mike Aitken improving most of his PRs to much higher standards. He passed quite a few players as he climbed to Elite D overall only a point short of Elite C. Ray Bergstom has also continued his karting streak of PRs on his climb to the Legends. He has been hitting some more Legend times this week which is looking great on his profile; he has now scraped through to King B overall standard and #19 on NTSC! Chris Zueger also improved quite a few PRs and moved up the NTSC Players' List to #36 not far from Elite A!

    Julien Holmière has had a great week this week as his latest PRs gained him a position past Archibald Lefevre in France! He is now ranked at #3 in France and is very close to recahing Gava and the GOD standard. Julien's World Ranking is #5! His PRs included quite a few fast GOD times! Sébastien Holmière also had fun with KB1 improving the times greatly and gaining more SR points, along with a few other PRs. He shot into the Legend D overall standard and passed the Champion of Switzerland, Raphael Braun for #10 in the World Ranking on PAL. Joann Mondou improved some of his times on all round courses from all cups hitting more Master times of which were previously weaker times. A few more went into the Elites aswell and he is now Master E and #66 on PAL.

    Champion of Sweden, Kalle Videkull continues to threaten the top ranks of PAL SMK with his improvements. He sent in 5 GOD times, the lap of VL2 being really great! He has now climbed to Legend B overall and is catching L'Hoëst fast! Belgian Champion, Peter Toch improved 4 records this week but mainly worked on BC3 to hit a faster 5-lap which is tough for all karters. He succeeded with some nice times in the Legend and GOD standard (5-lap & 1-lap). He is now only a point off reaching Legend F, and Steven Zwartjes is not too far ahead.

    Nicolas Clementy improved his CI2 lap with the new strategy taking down quite a few points off his SR score. Archibald Lefevre also improved a single PR on KB1 lap. He had some difficulty with the new strategy but is sure to hit it well soon! Pierre L'Hoëst has returned to send in some trick times for GV1, KB1 and VL2. They are looking good so far, well done!

NEW MEMBER

    We have one new member to NTSC this week. Mark Sunderland from Canada sent in all his times with extra information on his karting history! He was active from 1993 till 1995 and made a lot of great times, but has not karted until now. We look forward to seeing his progress on the site! He enters the NTSC Players' List at #38 and #9 in Canada with an overall standard of Elite C!

THIS WEEK'S UPDATE

    Due to extra days left for this month, we are leaving another week for the final POW. The POQ and also long awaited POY will be announced in the Special Awards page next week. It has been another hectic week as yet another track has been attacked with a new strategy. Mario Circuit 1 fastlap on PAL changed with the use of 2 boosts to make a little bit faster lap. Julien Holmière was the first karter to get this going and made a great WR last week at 0'11"94 which he recently improved to 0'11"90. With his time he managed to reach GOD standard overall, congratulations! Sami Çetin fought back on this WR after Christmas and made several cuts off the time to his current new 0'11"82 PAL WR. These recordings were taped. Jamie White tore BC1 to pieces as he went after the big barrier of a sub 1'27"! Even with some errors in the race he broke it to 1'26"96!! He also improved his DP3 NTSC WRs to 1'18"40 and 0'15"43! Simon Laflamme continued to work on MC3 and is really enjoying the results with a very solid 5-lap NTSC WR at 1'29"78 and a crazy 1-lap NTSC WR of 0'17"79!! This was without any boost, which makes it really great!

    The rest of the NTSC activity had Martin Morissette taking the lead with many new records, most of them small but cutting off many SR points in total. He climbed to the top 10 on NTSC! Ray Bergstrom also had a good week making his way through the King B standard. His MC1 PRs were looking great at a strong 1'00" and a sub 12 second lap. His other PRs are between the low Legends and high Kings. He passed Dirk Olson and Wes Kight on the NTSC Players' List for #17. His next target is clearly to reach the Legends. We had a small return from U.S Karter, Hue Le with a few Legend standard Rainbow Road PRs and a KB1 trick time. He is moving closer to Ryan Harrington on the NTSC list. Mike Aitken sent in 1 PR on DP2 5-lap, but that was all that was needed to cut a point off to reach Elite C on NTSC!

    Matthew McCarthy improved 11 PRs and gained a position on the PAL Players' List by passing Sébastien Pereda for #17 on PAL. His MC1 time is looking nice at 1'01" and he is now only a few points away from reaching the Legend G standard! Sébastien Holmière also set 11 new PRs to continue attacking the higher Legend karters. Many of his times were very good Legends with some GOD times together. He climbed to Legend C overall standard and has passed Gerard Roodhorst for #9 on PAL! Archibald Lefevre had some good results with the new KB1 strategy that got him a lot of SR points, he also improved MC1 lap to a GOD time. His cut in SR not only got him to GOD overall, but he also passed Julien Holmière and Jérôme Gava for #2 in France and #4 in the World on PAL! A very close battle with Holmière indeed!

    Kalle Videkull is continuing his progress well in SMK with a start on the KB1 strategy and some KB2 times close to the WRs. His VL2 5-lap is also looking kinda scary! He climbed through to Legend A overall standard, expect him to be a GOD soon. He also passed Pierre L'Hoëst for #7 in the World on PAL! Peter Toch improved two PRs on DP1, the 1-lap getting faster now. He made it to Legend F overall standard and is getting closer to retired Steven Zwartjes. Joann Mondou sent us some improvements of Master and Elite standards, the Rainbow Road times in the Kings, and this time he has made it to Master D overall standard!