HAPPY NEW YEAR!

    Firstly just wishing you all a Happy New Year! 2003 has been yet another good year for SMK with some good activity all round. As the game gets older we expect that players will move on to new things, play other games but SMK is still alive after nearly 11 and a half years, so lets keep it going! Keep those PRs coming in, and any recruiting that can be done, particularly on the NTSC side to increase the numbers will be great! Lets make 2004 as active as the other years!

ALEX PITERA

    After some discussion with Alex Pitera, PAL about his PRs he sent in this week, he said that he had been playing on an emulator which was NTSC version. This was only because he was unable to find a PAL snes. He has said that he will try to get a PAL snes sometime this year and is currently searching on ebay for one. For now he has been removed from the PAL List, Rankings and Top Times. Once he has a PAL snes he will play the courses through again and rejoin the site. Hope to have you back with us again soon Alex.

PLAYER OF THE YEAR

    First a note to say that the last POW, POM and POQ awards have been given. Then came the decision for Player of the Year. It was extremely tough to decide because so many of you have done well. Infact all of you that have been active at all this year should give yourselves a pat on the back because you all done really well. Of course we can only have one winner for 2003, the result is up on the Special awards page!

NEW MEMBER

    We have another new member to the site this week. The brother of Anna van Voorst, Willem van Voorst from the Netherlands has joined the PAL Rankings high up at #43 with an overall standard of King E! Welcome to the site!

PR UPDATES

    An exciting end to 2003 with the return of Dutch Champion, Michael Jongerius as he hits two solid PAL WRs on Donut Plains 2 with 1'27"30 and 0'17"19! Well done! Over in France we saw a return from Julien Holmière also, and he took everyone by suprise hitting lots of new records, some of the NBT. He cut enough off his SR to pass more of the French crowd in the Top 10 to reach #6 on PAL and #3 in France! French Champion, Pierre L'Hoëst also kept busy working on CI1 and KB2 hitting decent records and cutting more off his SR Score. Eddy Lisima also had a good week after some good Star Cup cuts that helped him to King B overall standard, #27 on PAL and #11 in France.

    Activity in Germany was also good as Armin Huber continued to attack the Kings with another long list of PRs! He now stands at King C overall stand and may be moving up a rank in Germany soon. Mario Brüser who joined us some weeks back has sent us his first lot of PRs, all for Mushroom cup and he has made some very good cuts, so a lot of potential for him! He climbed to Elite G overall standard and is now #69 on PAL. Daniel Caterbow continued to improve more of his times with Bowser, a few still with Koopa and is now at Pro A overall standard. He will reach the Masters very soon. Champion of Switzerland, Raphael Braun improved some of his BC times and made solid records for BC1 and BC3, cutting down some SR points along the way. British Karter, Matthew McCarthy has also kept himself busy in the GOD standards cutting down some of his weaker times and making his stronger ones a bit better and chopped quite a bit of SR off, his next lot of PRs could have an interesting effect. Swedish Karter, Andreas Runnelid improved 4 PRs this week and climbed into Elite C overall standard and #58 on PAL! Karel van Duijvenboden of the Netherlands improved his MC1 very well with NBT to hit a #3 time in the Top 100s!

    Over on NTSC, we had little activity except for two in Canada, in the Legends Chris Balch set 7 PRs and climbed a bit further, passing another karter to be #18 on NTSC! Jason Fraser also had a good week with MC1 NBT and some MC4, this helped him cut enough points to reach GOD standard overall on NTSC! Well done Jason!

NEW VIDEO FILES UP

    This week, Chris Balch informed us of his new video files page that is up at http://timeofdeath.net/smk/, the link can also be visited via the SMK proof page.

NON-NBT JOINING PAGE

    The Non-New Boost Technique (NON-NBT) SMK page is getting built further as the weeks go by. Simon Laflamme informed us this week of the joining page for the site; for those interested you can visit it at http://www.oocities.org/nonnbtplayerssite/join/

NEW MEMBER

    A new PAL member to the site this week from the U.K. Some of you may know Paul Tanney as he is currently the British Champion of Mario Kart Double Dash in Time Trials, he has just sent us his records for SMK and entered the PAL rankings at #104 with an Expert G ranking. His records were just quick runs through, he should be able to improve on them well sometime in the future. Welcome to the site!

PR UPDATES

    We had good activity in the Netherlands this week with Michael Jongerius taking MC1 PAL lap WR to 0'11"77!! Julien Holmière tried hard and got close but didn't secure a WR there, but instead for MC3 1-lap with a great 0'17"95!! Other active Dutch karters included our new entries, Willem Van Voorst who sent in his first big lot of improvements and climbed up very quickly to King B overall standard, #27 on PAL and #7 in the Netherlands. His sister, Anna van Voorst also karted with some good improvements and she made a climb to Expert A overall standard and #100 on PAL! Karel van Duijvenboden hit one of his targets this week after 5 PRs got him into the Legends, he now stands at #19 on PAL, #5 in the Netherlands and Legend G overall standard.

    In France, Sebastien Holmière tried to set a few PRs to keep up with his brother's success so far. He cut off a few SR points with some good attempts including a lap on MC1 not far off the 1-lap WR. Eddy Lisima made a few records this week but his climb got him to King A overall standard, #23 on PAL and #9 in France. Matthew McCarthy set two PRs on CI1 and cut a few points down. Armin Huber of Germany worked on most courses to gain as many points as possible. This worked well as he reached King B overall and is now #29 on PAL, also having passed Björn Kühn to be #3 in Germany now! Well done Armin! Andreas Runnelid of Sweden also had an interesting week with some improvements on courses from different cups. He nearly moved up a standard but passed Swedish karter Daniel Rydh and Austrian Champion, Roland Pristauz to be #56 on PAL and #6 in Sweden.

    On NTSC, Chris Balch set some more good marks and has climbed to #15 on NTSC! He is also Legend D overall standard now after cutting enough points off this week. Jason Fraser played BC1 and KB2 this week and made some good progress there cutting off a few more points off his SR.

NON-NBT JOINING PAGE

    The Non-NBT page is now up, a link is added above. You can also view it here:  http://www.oocities.org/nonnbtplayerssite

CORRECTION TO CHRIS BALCH'S VIDEO FILES LINK

    Chris Balch e-mailed us this week to inform us of a correction to his video files link, it is actually http://timeofdeath.net/smk.html so ignore the other one, it has been corrected in the proof of times page so you can view it now.

NEW MEMBER

    Another new member to PAL version this week as we welcome Matthias Boucher of France who sends us all of his times that earn him a high overall standard to start with at King E and a PAL World Ranking of #43! He is also #16 in France. Welcome to the site!

PR UPDATES

    A PAL World Record was again improved as Julien Holmière takes MC1 lap back to 0'11"74!! Sébastien Holmière also hit something great with KB2 that is way down to 0'11"80!! Some great new records this week indeed! On NTSC, Eric Myers was the karter who provided the longest list of improvements this week; PRs on all cups that cut off a good amount of points. Eric now stands at King D overall standard and #36 on NTSC! Jason Fraser also did well with an improvement to GV2 lap that cut off the point he needed to pass Colombian Champion, Juan Sebastián Arévalo for the 7th position on NTSC!

    Back in France, Duarte-Leite Frederic celebrated his reaching the Legends this week! A selection of PRs from different cups got him there to Legend G overall standard, #8 in France and #20 on PAL. Eddy Lisima made big cuts to VL2 this week and nearly made it to the Legends but moved up to #23 on PAL. In the Netherlands, Willem van Voorst hit 6 strong PRs and climbed up to King A and #25 on PAL! It looks like he will be after the Legends very soon. We had a return from Mike Groels who is currently in the lower Master standards, Mike improved 2 of his records this week. Gerard Roodhorst hit two very strong BC3 records and is nearly at Legend B overall. Karel van Duijvenboden is also doing well in the Legend G standard as a pair of MC4 times helps him past former PAL champion, Edwin Peeters. Karel is now #4 in the Netherlands and #18 on PAL!

    In the U.K, Matthew McCarthy is again fighting well on CI1 with a sub 1'01" time and a good lap to go with it, he cuts down a few more SR points. Armin Huber of Germany also improves a selection of records with a GOD lap for BC1 and some other great times, he has made it up to #28 on PAL and will be King A soon!

NEXT UPDATE

    Just a short note to say that there is no update next weekend as I am going home for the weekend, but there will be the following week. The next update is on Sunday 8th February 2004. PR submissions for that update should be in by Saturday afternoon or so GMT, earlier the better.

PR UPDATES

    A lot of activity again this week from France as we see Sébastien Holmière nail KB2 with some very strong WRs, a 5-lap video is available on his proof page. The records now stand at 0'59"44 and 0'11"04!! Sébastien also made it to #3 on PAL this week with his improvements! Julien Holmière followed behind also with some good times and a great lap on KB2. French Champion, Pierre L'Hoëst worked on CI1 mainly this week and finally broke the 5-lap barrier he wanted and made a great lap to go with it! Eddy Lisima made good progress too as his PRs on some Mushroom and Special Cup courses got him up to #21 on PAL and #9 in France! Duarte-Leite Frederic improved DP2 and KB2 and this helped him up to #19 on PAL.

    In the U.K, Matthew McCarthy had a great time trying KB2 as he hit his first U.K record which he held for a little while! He made one or two other improvements and this helped him up to #7 on PAL! Sami Çetin made a quick return and took the lap back and made a few other improvements. In the Netherlands, Willem van Voorst was hitting some good Legend times and is nearly making it there to the Legends overall. He is now #24 on PAL. Karel van Duijvenboden worked on several courses and set some good times and made it to Legend F overall standard, #16 on PAL and #3 in the Netherlands! Dutch Champion, Michael Jongerius improved his GV2 lap slightly this week that gained him an SR point. Champion of Switzerland, Raphael Braun set some records for BC2 which were pretty fast and helped him cut a few points down. Armin Huber is getting better and better each week with BC1, he now has both GOD times there looking stronger! His other PRs are also good and he made it to King A overall standard and # 27 on PAL!

    On NTSC, Thomas Harrington made a very strong return setting many new GOD standard improvements and shot past Stanley Jeram for #4 on NTSC! Jason Fraser made again a small improvement to his MC2 5-lap, which is now a GOD time.