HAPPY NEW YEAR

    Firstly just a quick note to wish everyone a happy new year for 2005! It has been yet another great year for SMK in 2004 with several new members to both PAL and NTSC, new strats found and new WRs made! Lets keep this up again for 2005, and do try to recruit more members from around the world to our site as this will increase the competition and add to the fun!

    Keep up the great karting everyone and have a fantastic new year!

IMPORTANT : EARLIER UPDATE NEXT WEEK

    I will be going back to University on Sunday the 9th January, when the next update would normally be. As I will be a little busy travelling/shopping/unpacking on that day, I have decided to do the next week's update a day early on Saturday 8th January. So this is just a note to say that I will make final checks of e-mails etc for PRs at about 18:00 (GMT, U.K time) on Friday 7th January. As some of you have experienced, sometimes e-mails or yahoogroups posts come through a little late and some of you were disappointed that your PRs had to wait another week to get in the update. So it may be advisable to get your week's PRs in a day early on Thursday the 6th, just to be sure. NTSC karters in America will need to send well earlier than the stated time because of the time zone difference. Most of you are already familiar with a sudden early update, so this note is mainly for those members of the site who have only recently joined so you are aware of the situation and can try to have your PRs on next week's update rather than later.

    Sunday updates will continue as normal from Sunday 16th January.

PR UPDATES

    The year finishes well for PAL World Champion, Karel van Duijvenboden as he finally reaches 40/40 GOD times after securing that tough Rainbow Road 5-lap. He also makes it to -13.000 SR Score dead on with two great PAL WRs for CI1 with 0'57"67 and a nice barrier broken on the lap with 0'10"99! On NTSC, Canadian Champion, Simon Laflamme defends his position well from Chris Balch with 3 great PRs including a crazy Non-NBT 5-lap NTSC World Record for Ghost Valley 3 with 1'13"17! He is also catching up again to Oliver Segarra Gonzalez. Back on PAL, in the Netherlands, Django Vaal made many new records on most courses and a big climb to Elite G overall standard, #91 in the World on PAL and #13 in the Netherlands. U.K Champion, Sami Çetin made a suprise return after an SMK meeting with Matthew McCarthy. After some long boost strat help he was able to lower his MC2 times fairly well. He managed to defend his 3rd place this week. Alasdair Morrison also kept active this week with some decent PRs including a good cut for DP2. He moved up a position to #79 in the World on PAL and #14 in the U.K. German Champion, Armin Huber made a small PR to is MC2 lap. Also in Germany Tobias Biroga defended his position from Django with some PRs that brough him closer to Elite F.

    In France, Sébastien Holmière tried to take 3rd place in a battle with Sami this week. He succeeded with some nice MC2 long boost times before Sami fought back for 3rd place. Sébastien has now reached -10 SR Score. Julien Homière also did some MC2 work and hit a few other PRs that cut his SR Score down nicely. Franck Mazières suprised us with a lot of NBT attempts on many courses! His PRs here were strong, so if he continues to improve like this, expect him to fly up the ranks quite high in the coming weeks. He has made it to Legend B overall standard and is now #18 in the World on PAL. Not far ahead of Franck, Harold Christensen set 2 PRs to get a little closer towards Legend A. David Bonne set a BC3 lap PR this week. Clement Papon was another karter with many new records for this week. He has driven on most courses with many solid Legend times and a climb to Legend E overall standard, #21 in the World on PAL and #10 in France. Matthias Boucher worked on some strong GOD times with NBTs and is getting very close to Swedish Champion, Kalle Videkull and British veteran karter Matthew McCarthy. Antoine Olivier finally reaches the Legend status he was after with 4 PRs, a move up to #32 in the World on the PAL Rankings and a #15 position in France after passing Leutwyler. Axel Descamps made some nice PRs to reach King F overall standard, #58 on PAL and #26 in France.

    On NTSC, in Brazil, Alencar Faria did some great work with many new PRs more reaching the GODs and his weaker times moving into the Legends. He has made it to Legend B overall standard. He has a lot of potential and will reach GOD standard overall soon. He has also moved up to #15 in the World on NTSC. Brazilian Champion, Oliver Segarra Gonzalez made a CI2 lap PR. In Canada, Jonathan Girard had a great week with several PRs including GOD times for the KBs. He has climbed to King A overall standard and is now #34 in the World on NTSC and #11 in Canada. In U.S.A, Drew Blumfield set a solid MC1 5-lap time. He is hoping to break the 1'00" barrier soon. Joseph Lillo continued to kart this week and is well on the way to reaching the Kings if he keeps it up. So far he has made it to Elite C overall standard, #60 in the World on NTSC and #27 in U.S.A.

EARLY UPDATE

    Just incase a few of you wondered, the update is a day early today on Saturday, as mentioned last week. Updates will continue as normal on Sundays from next week onwards. Keep those PRs coming in!

NEW MEMBER

    We now reach 100 members for NTSC as Alencar Faria from Brazil recruits Leonardo Vieira to the site! Leonardo enters the SMK Time Trials at #74 in the World on NTSC and #6 in Brazil. Welcome to the site Leonardo, we look forward to seeing you improve your records!

PR UPDATES

    On NTSC, Brazilian Champion Oliver Segarra Gonzalez sets a great CI2 Lap NBT WR of 0'12"75! He is now very close to Japanese Champion, Masakazu Goto. A video of his time is available on his site (see the SMK Video Files Page). Chris Balch also set a WR, one that was a tie with Simon Laflamme on DP3 5-lap with 1'18"20*. Chris has been testing NBT and also made some very strong times on DP2. He is approaching Simon now for the Canadian title, lets see what happens next week! Back in Brazil, Alencar Faria has been setting more PRs and making his way towards GOD overall. He is almost at Legend A now and has passed Michael Liem for #14 on NTSC. The rest of the Canadian activity included Jonathan Girard who has been making stronger times each week. He set many PRs this time, a few like his VL2 times were strong GOD standards. Jonathan is now Legend F overall standard, #31 in the World (NTSC) and #10 in Canada. Not far ahead, Chris Williams has been working on more records hitting GOD standards. His main achievement being a sub 1'00" for KB2! In U.S.A, Joseph Lillo is very active in SMK with new PRs on a lot of courses; his most notable achievements are in KB2 and VL2. He is now Elite B overall standard and ranked at #59 in the World on NTSC. Drew Blumfield improves his MC1 lap this week.

    On PAL, in the U.K, Matthew McCarthy made some great progress on VL1 and VL2, with a few tries he hit some strong GOD times on each! Along with this he lowered his DP2 record a bit. Tom Gaffikin had an SMK meeting with U.K Champion, Sami Çetin, and after some inactivity, Tom was on fire with PRs once again! He broke the 1'20" barrier on DP2 and GV3, set a strong RR time and lowered some other laps on various courses opening up even more potential for him. We look forward to seeing him climb further soon! In Germany, Tobias Biroga was competing with Dutch karter Django Vaal. Tobias attacked first with 15 PRs including mainly Elites with a few King times and Masters and climbed to Elite E overall standard passing many karters along the way to become #80 in the World on PAL and #9 in Germany. Django however fought back to lead the battle with some large cuts to PRs in places and a climb to Elite D overall standard, #78 in the World on PAL and #10 in the Netherlands. In France, Franck Mazières kept active again with non-nbt PRs and nbt PRs that have helped him up a position to #17 in France. In Sweden, Andreas Runnelid hits a King F PR on DP3 1-lap.

NEW PHOTO ADDED TO GALLERY

    This week Armin Huber updates us with his latest photo that has been added to the photo gallery under the German karters PAL link. If anyone else has any photos of themselves they would like to add, please send them in.

GUILLAUME LEVIACH JOINING NTSC

    French PAL karter Guillaume Leviach has started karting on an NTSC snes aswell and now wishes to enter the NTSC rankings. He has reached Legend F overall standard and #32 on NTSC after setting some great times all round.

PR UPDATES

    On PAL, World Champion Karel van Duijvenboden set 3 new WRs! A 0'12"20 lap for GV1, a new long boost lap on MC2 of 0'13"27 and a great new 5-lap WR previously held by Sami Çetin that now stands at 1'30"62! German Champion, Armin Huber hits a BC1 WR tie of 1'28"65! On NTSC, Oliver Segarra Gonzalez of Brazil takes a big cut on CI2 5-lap with a new barrier broken of 1'05"91!

    Also in Brazil on NTSC, Alencar Faria has made a good cut in SR score with some strong PRs, and has now reached GOD standard overall. Leonardo Vieira has reached Master A overall standard and #74 on NTSC with some new PRs. In Canada, Jonathan Girard was again very active and has reached Legend E and #28 on NTSC with some good Legend and GOD times. Gabriel Laflamme sets 6 PRs and climbs to Semi-Pro B and #91 on NTSC. In U.S.A, Joseph Lillo has karted a lot and made many new PRs. He has climbed to #59 on NTSC and Elite A, almost at the Kings. Drew Blumfield improves GV1 lap and climbs to Master C overall standard.

    On PAL, in France, Clement Papon improved MC3 and MC4 and reached Legend D overall standard. Franck Mazières set 3 PRs and cut his SR Score down further. His Non-NBT KB2 time reached GOD standard. Guillaume Leviach worked on his PAL records and made some good results, he has great potential on many courses still! So far he has reached King C overall standard, #44 in the World on PAL and #21 in France. In the U.K, Matthew McCarthy sets a VL1 PR that cuts off a few SR points. David Reed climbs to Master F and #98 PAL and #19 in the U.K with 10 PRs. In the Netherlands, Django Vaal has 13 new PRs and a climb to Elite C overall standard. He is also now ranked at #73 on PAL. Michael Jongerius sets a pair of strong Rainbow Road times. In Germany, Tobias Biroga makes 6 good PRs and climbs to Elite D overall standard and #79 on PAL.

IMPORTANT NOTICE : NEXT UPDATE IN TWO WEEKS TIME

    Just informing you all that next weekend I will be away for a bit, so the next update will be in two weeks time on Sunday 6th February. Keep the PRs coming in anyway during both the weeks!

NEW PROOF LINK UP

    Jonathan Girard of NTSC from Canada has sent us a link to his site he has just put up for some proof of his times. So far he has added pics of his records. He will hopefully add some vids here later on. The link can be found at http://photobucket.com/albums/v248/Sheex/ and in the Proof page.

NEW MEMBERS

    Two new karters are joining NTSC and one new karter joining PAL this week!

    On NTSC, from Brazil we have Mairo Vergara who is very skilled and sends all of his records in to reach King F overall standard, #56 in the World on NTSC and #6 in Brazil.

    Also on NTSC, from Canada, we welcome Nathan Cromwell who has driven a full set of times and enters the NTSC Ranking at #100 with an Advanced F overall standard.

    On PAL, from the U.K, Steven Cotton joins the site who has so far reached the Elite G overall standard and is ranked at #92 on PAL and #17 in the U.K.

    Welcome to the site! We look forward to seeing you improve your records!

PR UPDATES

    On NTSC, in Canada, Chris Balch improves the DP3 5-lap WR to 1'18"03! Jonathan Girard reaches #26 on NTSC with some strong PRs including KB1 and GV2. In U.S.A, Dean Barnhart suprised us with several new records on many courses that cut a lot of SR points off. He has climbed quickly to Elite A overall standard, #61 in the World on NTSC and #27 in U.S.A! Drew Blumfield drove 5 new PRs and destroyed his KB2 times to reach Master B overall standard. He has a lot of potential to take down many of his other PRs easily! Joseph Lillo hits 2 PRs this week, enough for him to break into the Kings at King G overall standard on NTSC. In Brazil, Alencar Faria made some big cuts to his times, like on KB1 and some stronger GOD times on CI2 and VL1. He has passed 2 karters to become #12 in the World on NTSC, including Juan Sebastián Arévalo to make him #2 in South America. Leonardo Vieira has set 4 PRs and climbed to Elite G overall standard and #74 on NTSC. His VL2 PRs were a great improvement.

   On PAL, in the U.K, Alasdair Morrison had a great session of SMK with new PRs on all cups. The most notable improvements were on DP3 and GV3. He has climbed to Elite D overall standard and #78 on PAL. In the Netherlands, Karel van Duijvenboden made a strong DP3 5-lap PR. In France, Antoine Olivier makes 5 PRs and reaches #31 on PAL. Clement Papon made some fast NBT times on MC3 and MC4 and cut some SR points down. David Bonne made some good Legend times and a GOD time and cut some points down off his SR Score. Franck Mazières has reached #16 on PAL and #8 in France with a NBT MC3 PR. Matthias Boucher sets 2 PRs and reaches -6 SR score and passes Kalle Videkull for #8 on PAL. Guillaume Leviach improves his PAL VL2 times and improves to #42 on PAL and King B overall standard. In Germany, Armin Huber hit some VL2 and RR PRs and cut a few SR points down. Tobias Biroga set 8 PRs which cut down some points, he reached #78 before Alasdair secured that position. Its likely we'll see a battle between Tobias and Alasdair next week!