NEW MEMBERS

    Some very interesting news regarding new members this week! Two new members joining to the NTSC World Rankings.

    Our first new member is Mitsuya Mikan of Japan who has been active in SMK till recently and has sent us all of his records so far. He has played some courses a lot, others he should be able to improve on quite easily. His MC1 5-lap record is the one to watch though as it stands as a new NTSC World Record! He enters the NTSC Rankings at #15 in the World and #1 in Japan. His overall standard is Legend D.

    Our second new member is from the U.S.A, Nick Roberts who also has a great MC1 time to start off with, check that out aswell! His overall standard is Master F so far and is #60 on NTSC.

PR UPDATES

    Chris Balch worked hard on mainly Star and Special cup times this week and climbed quickly up to the Kings at King E overall standard. He is now #9 in Canada and #37 in the World on NTSC. Martin Morissette made some nice times this week, a small improvement to BC3 lap and a sub 1'00" time for KB2! Antonio Abdo also continued his improvements, he is well on the way to reaching the Legends, his latest PRs helped him reach King A overall this week. Yves Daniel of France who plays on NTSC has made a quick return playing some random courses and chipping off a few points, he cut a few seconds off VL1 that helped him pass quite a few players who were close on the list, and he made it to Legend C overall standard. His world ranking is now #10 on NTSC and he has passed Christophe Paquin making him once again the #1 NTSC karter in France.

    Martin Payne kept the activity going in the U.K submitting PRs for most courses once again. He climbed into the Elites this week at Elite F and passed quite a few karters to be #64 on PAL! Over in France, Duarte-Leite Frederic kept himself busy with 10 PRs that he made helping him up to King C overall and #34 on PAL. Pierre L'Hoëst worked on his weaker CI2 records this week and has hit some solid times so far. Armin Huber played a little less this week but still made large improvements on VL2 again that pushed him up a standard to King F and #45 on NTSC! Andreas Runnelid cut off a few points with improvements for MC2 and CI2.

NEW MEMBERS

    Two new members this week to the site:

    Our first new member is for PAL version, Mario Brüser from Germany sends in all his times and enters the PAL World Rankings at #72 with an overall standard of Master A. He is currently #7 in Germany.

    Secondly we have Chris Kanich from U.S.A joining the NTSC side with a World Ranking of #64 and Pro F overall standard.

PR UPDATES

    Karters from Canada have been very active this week as we see Martin Morissette take the MC1 5-lap WR back from Japanese Champion Mitsuya Mikan to 0'58"49! This cut a point off for Martin aswell. We also had a return from Leigh Wetmore who went through almost every course destroying his records and flying up the NTSC list to King B overall standard, #29 in the World on NTSC and #10 in Canada! Antonio Abdo also did well making it to Legend G after some general improvements. Antonio also sneaked past Mark Sunderland to gain another rank in Canada at #7. His NTSC World Ranking is now #25. Chris Balch also has a similar week to Wetmore as he once again worked hard and fought his way through to the higher Kings. He is now also King B overall standard, #27 on the NTSC players' List and #9 in Canada. Close competition with these 3 karters now maybe for next week! Jason Fraser also returned with a small improvement and made it that bit closer to GOD standard overall. The Champion of Colombia, Juan Sebastián Arévalo was a bit more lucky as he made a return this week with  sub 1'00" time for MC1 and a pass into the GOD standard overall. He is now #7 on NTSC. Patrick Burke was the only active U.S karter this week but still made good progress with some general improvements that cut some points down off his SR, King F is getting closer.

    Over on PAL, the British crowd again kept on top of things, with Gary Flint sending in a large lot of improvements and making it to Elite C overall standard, #58 in the World on PAL and #10 in the U.K. Matthew McCarthy set some improvements on VL1 and is getting a bit closer to GOD standard overall. Gavin Ward made  a return with some solid records for GV3 cutting down some SR points. In France, Pierre L'Hoëst improved his CI2 slightly and Duarte-Leite Frederic set some great times on MC3 with the nbt and a few other PRs. He climbed to #33 on PAL. In Germany we had Armin Huber again improving well climbing to King E overall standard and #39 on PAL. Daniel Caterbow sent us a couple of improvements for DP1. Karel van Duijvenboden was the only active Dutch karter but he had a great week! Making sub 1'02" on MC1 was one achievement, setting other Legend times on other courses was also great. He climbed to King A this week, reached #6 in the Netherlands and # 24 in the World on PAL! Hampus Lindin of Sweden made his return this week after a long time of inactivity and has set records to take him up to King E overall and #41 on PAL. Serge Ludescher of Switzerland improved VL1 and scraped through to Legend F overall standard.

NEW MEMBER

    One new member to NTSC this week, Eric Myers from U.S.A enters the NTSC World Rankings high up at #42 with an overall standard of King F! Welcome to the site!

NEW VIDEO FILES ON PROOF PAGE

    This week, Martin Morissette has sent us a link to some more video files, these feature his amazing work at Mario Circuit 1, here is the link (which can also be found in the proof page):

http://www.angelfire.com/ultra/smk_vids

PR UPDATES

    French Champion Pierre L'Hoëst has improved his CI2 times again but made even more success with MC3 1-lap by cutting it down a tiny bit further to 0'18"07! He wasn't the only one to make success with WRs this week as on NTSC, Japanese Champion, Mitsuya Mikan lowered his MC1 PRs down slightly. The lap got close the the WR, but he managed to take the 5-lap WR back to 0'58"36! Well done!

    The rest of the NTSC half karted well this week with Chris Balch staying ever active this month and climbing higher up the list. Definitely a karter who is going to threaten the higher ranks in the near future. Chris climbed to Legend F overall standard and #21 in the World on NTSC. After passing more Canadian karters he now stands at #6 in Canada! Colombian Champion, Juan Sebastián Arévalo has continued with MC1 using some of the NBT to improve his times more. He is cutting them down very well so far and is gaining some points on SR score. Jason Fraser has also improved his MC1 lap quite a bit this week, and is getting very close to GOD standard overall.

    PAL version activity also brought a lot of excitement, as British #2 karter, Matthew McCarthy reaches the GOD standard overall! He didn't stop there as he continued to attack more of his times, including making a scary lap for VL1 and setting some good marks for the DP courses. Well done there! Over in France, Eddy Lisima who joined us not long ago hit quite a big list of PRs and shot himself up to King D overall standard and #35 on PAL! A big improvement there aswell! Karel van Duijvenboden hit a lot of MC times and a BC and cut off a few points and made it to #23 on PAL. In Germany, Armin Huber kept busy with again his favourite BC courses to make them sharp as possible and also a bit off MC2, he is at King D overall standard and #37 in the World on PAL. Andreas Runnelid had an interesting result this week from karting CI1 & 2 and DP3. He cut off a good number of points pushing him ahead on the list of Magnus Rydh making him #7 in Sweden and #59 in the World on PAL!

NEW MEMBER

    A new member to PAL version from the Netherlands this week. Anna van Voorst joins the PAL World Rankings at #105 with an Advanced A overall standard. Welcome to the site!

PR UPDATES

    Martin Morissette sent in his last PRs of 2003 this week, yet again taking back the record of Japanese Champion, Mitsuya Mikan on MC1 to 0'58"34! He didn't stop there as he made a few other improvements including a new broken barrier on MC4 of 1'34"93! Well done Martin! Chris Balch set a few good times and made it to Legend E overall, he claimed #19 position on the NTSC World Rankings! Antonio Abdo improved his weaker KB1 times well and has cut some SR points down!

    On PAL version we have a few active French karters, with French Champion Pierre L'Hoëst hitting some superb times for MC1 and also a solid KB2 record! Duarte-Leite Frederic cut a lot off CI2, VL1 and MC4 this week making him climb higher to King A on the overall standards, #23 in the World on PAL and #9 in France! A good week there! This week also showed a return from Yann Ledrux with several new records on all cups. He has already moved up a few standards to Semi-Pro B overall and #92 on the PAL Players' List.

    Hampus Lindin from Sweden has worked on quite a few of his times this week setting lots of strong King records and climbing to King D overall standard. He is now #40 on the PAL World Rankings. Not far ahead was Armin Huber making some gradual improvements on a small selection of courses. He is nearly reaching King C overall and is #36 on PAL now. Karel van Duijvenboden has again been working on MC1 and is getting some better records with the NBT. He has cut his SR Score down a few points with his PRs and reached #22 on PAL. Matthew McCarthy improved his MC1 times, the 5-lap being sub 1'33".

NEXT WEEK'S UPDATE

    I will be returning to University next Sunday (4th January) so i have decided to do the update a day earlier on Saturday 3rd January. So I will make final checks for PRs at about 17:00 GMT on Friday 2nd January. Sorry for any inconvenience. Updates will be back to normal on Sundays the following week.