MY GERMANY TRIP

    Some of you may be aware that I will be going to Germany next week. We leave on Thursday 14th February and will return on Saturday 23rd February. It is to help with my German A-Level studies in College. We will fly to Hamburg and then take a train to Bremen where we will meet up with the families that we will be staying with. From there by car we travel to the small town (Wildeshausen) where we are staying. We stay in Wildeshausen for 7 days, the last two days will be in Hamburg from where we will return home on the 23rd. This means that there will be no updates for a few weeks, but the Thursday after I get back I will do an update (at least try to, it may be quite a lot of work!).

The next SMK update will be on:

Thursday 28th February 2002

THIS WEEK'S UPDATES

    The French Karters have kept the competition going well this week even though we didn't have any new World Records. Julien David created a lot of attention with 19 great new records that covered most of the courses and cut his SR down by 59 points. He climbed up to #34 on the PAL Players' List and reached Elite C! He is definitely driving along the same lines right behind his cousin Matthieu Cruypenninck, who is finding the PRs slightly hardre to do being at King G level now, but is still hitting a lot of King times. One thing is certain, that Julien is catching Matthieu, so we look forward to seeing what happens here! Matthieu has passed 3 people and is now #26 on PAL! Jérôme Gava set two GOD times on KB2 that shaved a little more of his SR and his way towards Lefevre.

    Michael Jongerius has a busier week this week but still had time to hit some great records! These included GOD times for DP3!!! And his GV3 5-lap..... dangerously close to the WR! Gotta start getting these to tape (Note: please could someone e-mail Michael and explain to him how to connect the vcr up to the snes to tape his replays, because im too busy, too lazy rather!). Michael has now only fell six points short of becoming a Legend A on PAL! Andrew Kent has this week announced his retirement from Super Mario Kart. He has been a super player and has done extremely well. He made his last PRs and put his Snes Controller down with King A overall and #11 on PAL, managing to pass Swedish Champion, Joakim Alderborn. Andrew really has the potential to reach Legend, maybe we will see him return someday. Whether he does or not, we wish him the best of luck in the future! Thorsten Fellberg hasn't karted much this week, only VL2 where he fell short of breaking 1'00"00. He is even closer to the King B standard now.

    Three NTSC karters were active this week. Andrew Livingston was one, who set some nice PRs for BC1, KB1 and RR. KB1 of which were GOD times! He has also being busy but will continue his journey towards Legend, as he is almost a King A at the moment! Kent Marten hit some of those races he had difficulty on pretty nicely this week and cut 8 SR points off quite quickly. He didnt get to reach Jon Stein but made it far enough to become Master A! He is now only 37 points from becoming an Elite karter! Lastly we have a return from U.S karter Dirk Olson who has climbed to King B with his DP1 improvements. We look forward to hearing of his improvements.

NEW MEMBERS!

    Two great new NTSC members this week!

    First up we have our first Japanese entry! Nicolas Clementy has been searching Japanese sites and has got together the times of a Japanese player who retired from SMK way back in 1993. His name is Mikihiko Higashino. It seems he didn't play every course as much, but focused on a few. He has some successful times on VL2, but there is still more potential there. He was however famous for his MC1 times in which he has a WR which is a 59 second time! This was probably the Japanese 59 second time we were hearing about. As this was set in 1993, it is certain that there are many other fast Japanese players and we must continue to search the websites and even try to talk to some people if possible. Mikihiko enters at #19 in the World on NTSC and King D overall, we are sure there are faster Japanese karters out there overall but he is currently Japanese champion till the day we find out about others.

    Our second new member was recruited by myself and Simon Laflamme from Gamefaqs, a U.S Karter, Jamie White who has played SMK for many years, and wishes to stick to Time Trials more now. He has some great times so far, even on VL2, where he is nearly up to Mikihiko on lap! He is definitely in chance for the WRs there, so watch out! Jamie has reached #13 in the World on NTSC and King A overall! This will provide some competition for Andrew Livingston! Jamie is really motivated and should fly into the Legends pretty soon!

PICTURE ADDED TO PHOTO GALLERY

    The photo of Kevin Booth has been added to the SMK photo gallery this week. Again another reminder for those who would like to send pictures of themselves in, you are welcome to. I will add them to that page. I would like to change my picture again sometime, but ill do that when i look healthier....

UPDATES SINCE I WAS AWAY AND THIS WEEK

    Jérôme Gava made a suprise attack in the past weeks sending in a lot of new records, that even cut some nice SR points down. His most spectacular time though was his amazing WR tie on VL2 1-lap of 0'10"37*! He is now at Legend B standard overall, having passed Archibald and is now very close to Nicolas Clementy, Champion of France. Louis-Philippe Sabbagh has made a quick comeback! He sent in a PR that was made quite a while ago, this was for Ghost Valley 3, but was not only a PR, but a WR tie with one of Laflamme's greatest WRs! The time is 0'14"62*! Simon Laflamme pushed Donut Plains 2 to its limits this week with a superb set of WRs, taken away from Jeram. They now stand at 1'26"32 and 0'17"06!! The lap record is really untouchable!

    Kent Marten made Canada proud as it has another karter reach the Elites! He has been busy making bigger cuts to some of his PRs in the past weeks and in turn received a big cut down from SR. He even passed a few players in the process and has climbed to #43 on the NTSC Players' List as well as being Elite G! Michael Jongerius drove 3 fast GOD times this week, a sub 1'44" on BC2 and two very fast BC3 times that are close enough to the WRs now. His result was reaching Legend A on PAL, and has pulled further ahead of Nicolas Clementy. As for Nicolas Clementy, he has returned! After seeing that his records are under attack not only by Jongerius, but other nearby French karters, he is slowly starting to fight back. Two nice PRs from him this week, one for MC1 1-lap and the other on GV2. He cut a few points off but still has a way to go to reach Legend A.

    Mike Groels had a target a while back which was to reach the Masters. This time with 16 new records he finally made it. Most of his PRs were Master and the rest were Pro. He then got his sister Ilomé Groels to kart for a while, she made 5 new records with Toad that ranged from the Apprentice to Advanced level. She managed to cut enough off the SR score to reach Intermediate D overall! Well done Ilomé!

Continue to March 2002