THIS WEEK'S PR UPDATES

    It was a big fight for the POW on first week of March! Many of the best PAL karters fought to get the best PRs done and some great things were made but Jamie White came by in the last few days with 5 WRs this week, taking the POW and 2 extra WRs from the previous week. His times are just getting more and more consistent! Donut Plains has been cut down to 1'13"50 and the lap to 0'14"56. He broke big barriers on DP2 which look unbeatable at 1'24"90 and 0'16"77, and then went to BC2 where he held that long race tight as ever on the corners to hit 1'39"30! He also cut down MC4 without the use of the boost to new WRs of 1'37"50 and 0'19"22! As for the PAL crowd, it has been a real battle for #1 in France between two karters who gave it their best this week making a long list of PRs! Pierre L'Hoëst had quite a few improvements including some really fast GOD times on BC3! But his best was on MC4 where karted till he could get the boosts down perfectly and landed new PAL WRs at 1'37"74 and 0'19"20!! Sébastien Holmičre karted few many hours this week trying to take as many times down as possible. He made some great progress again on GV2 lap and others, but to our suprise, he managed to beat the VL1 lap WR to 0'10"03! It was a very close battle with these two karters, but just by 1 point, Pierre took the lead and is the new Champion of France! Well done!! The WRs didn't stop there as German Champion Florian Stern sent in his PRs and claimed the first German WR on PAL! After discovering a slightly better strat for DP1 lap he took the PAL WR down to 0'14"53! He also made a tie in the KB2 lap but that was later taken back by Sami Çetin who cut 0.02 off it to 0'11"92.

    Other active British karters were Matthew McCarthy who hit a GOD time on MC1 lap which was great and some other small cuts off other courses like CI1, DP2 and BC3. He came very close to reaching Legend F and should do so by the next update. Gavin Ward, also from the U.K who recently join us has been hammering down some of his records to get them out of the Elites and into the Kings. He did so already with some nice improvements and even has a Legend time already on Rainbow Road. He climbed to #50 on the PAL Players' List! Swedish Champion Kalle Videkull attacked his weaker courses hard and hit many GOD times, some that were very fast. His large SR cut threw him up to #5 on PAL this week! Arno van der Barselaar has been trying to get used to using hop jumping to take corners and improve his times. He is finding it difficult but is making progress as his 15 PR effort helped him to climb to Semi-Pro B!

    Back on NTSC, we have had 7 active Canadian karters! Mark Sunderland is cutting the corners tighter now and hitting a few more Legend times! He reached King D and #29 on NTSC and #8 in Canada after passing Samuel Aubry. Jean Sébastien Dubois also impressed us with his attack on many courses and large SR cuts. He also had a big climb to Elite C and #42 on NTSC! It is great also to see Stanley Jeram active, he has continued to attack the KB courses and is making some great progress there, we may see him break the 1'00" barrier on KB2 soon! Martin Morissette had a target to reach and his 9 PRs got him there, passing Liem for #6 on NTSC and reaching Legend A overall! Simon Laflamme improved DP2 breaking the 1'26" barrier which is what he had wanted for a while. His brother Gabriel Laflamme imrpoved 4 PRs helping him to pass Tom Koeppel Jr. in SR score for #81 on NTSC! Jason Fraser improved MC2 lap to a GOD time cutting a point off his SR.

    Other active NTSC karters were Juan Sebastián Arévalo who improved some of his records and climbed through to Legend E overall standard. He is approaching Kevin Booth on the NTSC list. Ray Bergstrom improved a few records but he finally managed to hit the time he has wanted for several weeks, even months. His MC1 time now stands at 0'59"99! Congratulations Ray! Patrick Burke improved 4 PRs to move up another position on the NTSC list to #36, he is now very near to the Kings!

NEW MARIO KART MESSAGE BOARD

   The guys over at the Mario Kart 64 page have recently created a new message board that covers all of the Mario Kart games, for SNES, N64, GBA and also a new thread ready for Mario Kart on the Gamecube. A section is open for SMK and some of us have started using it. I have now added this link above in the SMK extra's section, it may replace the old message board in time as has happened with the old MK64 one. So go and have a look at it, and post also if you like in the other kart games. This is useful because it creates interaction between karters of all of the Mario Karts. It may bring new members to each others sites also. The link is also here if you wish to see it:

http://www.mariokart64.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi

NEW MEMBER

    This week we had a new member from France, Christopher Paquin who has made some great times. But he is not a PAL member, he is NTSC! So far he is the second fastest NTSC French karter and enters the NTSC players list at #23 with a King C overall standard. Welcome to the site Christophe!

PR UPDATES THIS WEEK

    Jamie White was one karter to hit a few WRs this week, and he got them in just in time for the update. Three solid times again, this time being very consistent with his favorite, VL1 to a 0'49"00 NTSC WR and improving his DP3 WRs to 1'18"30 and 0'15"41! Sébastien Holmičre also attacked some of his times to bring them down lower, and although Pierre L'Hoëst's efforts were great on CI2, VL1 and RR, Sébastien's WR tie on DP1 lap of 0'14"53* plus other PRs brought him on top at #3 in the World on PAL and the new Champion of France!!

    British karter, Gavin Ward made an impressive attack on many of his records. He took several more of his Elite records and turned them into Kings. His overall standard has gone up much further now as he moves closer to another U.K karter. His overall standard is Elite A and he stands at #45 on the PAL Players' List. Dutch karter, Arno van der Barselaar seems to be improving his strategies more now as he is getting used to using Bowser on more tracks. He is pushing his times to higher standards on many courses, and his Rainbow Road time is getting faster too. He made it to Pro G overall standard with his new records and is #79 on the PAL Players' List. Swedish Champion, Kalle Videkull improved his DP3 times which are now looking very strong in the Top Times.

    Juan Sebastián Arévalo sent in 6 more improvements working on his KB times again to hit higher standards. His KB1 strategy may still need refining, then he will be able to make GOD times more easily, but his King and Legend records there so far are looking good, and he is going further with KB2. GV2 was also a nice suprise with the use of the platform jump. He passed two karters overall and is now #12 on NTSC, very near to Legend D! Over in Canada there were some great records set, with Mark Sunderland hitting some Legend times and even two GODs for CI2. He has gone for big SR cuts and climbed to King B overall standard. He is #21 on NTSC and #7 in Canada now! Jean-Sébastien Dubois did the same setting many new records and was hitting Legend times here and there on Star Cup, he reached a big barrier by landing on King G overall standard, #37 on NTSC and #10 in Canada. Canadian Champion Simon Laflamme set two fantastic GOD times for MC4 this week that were not far off the WRs.

THIS WEEK'S PR UPDATES

   Jamie White once again improved his favorite VL1 time down to 0'48"83! From there he went to KB1 to try the faster technique of going high speed driving on the sand and sliding across some water patches. He has successfully made some nice cuts off his records with this at 0'51"57 and 0'09"79! Over on PAL, Florian Stern broke out of the tie on his DP1 lap and improved the PAL World Record there to 0'14"45!! Congratulations there!

    The rest of the NTSC karters that were active also made great progress. At the beginning of the week we had Martin Morissette sending in several new records, mainly GOD times. These were enough to see him to his target which was to reach GOD overall! He didn't stop there as he continued to improve some more records and passed Louis-Philippe Sabbagh for #5 in the World on NTSC and #3 in Canada! Christophe Paquin, a French karter who recently joined NTSC has been chopping his PRs down a lot this week with some GOD time improvements on CI2 and other great records. He has reached King A and #20 on NTSC! Juan Sebastián Arévalo hit DP1 hard this week with double GOD times, this alone got him to Legend D overall and #11 on NTSC! Jean-Sebastien Dubois improved three of his PRs to cut some more points off his SR score. These included a 1'00" time on MC1, well done!

    Over on PAL, Arno van der Barselaar's karting is picking up the pace more now with Bowser and hop jumping. He cut some large amounts off DP1, and KB1 lap even went to the King standards!! Arno van der Barselaar climbed to Pro E overall standard and #75 on the PAL Players' List. Kalle Videkull attacked some courses like MC4 with the boosts and set faster GOD times all round on his 7 PRs. His SR is catching up quick to the karters above. Matthew McCarthy had an attempt at a few of the boosts and hit a Legend time for DP1 lap. His CI2 is getting much tighter now also. He has climbed to Legend F overall standard on PAL. Champion of France, Sébastien Holmičre improved 5 of his records, including the use of the boost on MC4 and hit a few other nice records including CI1, DP2 and CI2. He has maintained his position at #1 in France this week. Pierre L'Hoëst is following closely behind Sébastien and is getting tighter on DP1 plus is getting used to the strategy for KB1. He cut a few points off his SR.

NEW MEMBER

    We have a new NTSC member this week. Mike Gawdunyk from Canada sends us all of his records that have entered him to #74 on the NTSC Players' List. He is currently at Pro D overall standard.

THIS WEEK'S PR UPDATES

    This week shows Kalle Videkull, the SMK Champion of Sweden with his first PAL WR! Along with a nice PR on KB1 he hit a 0'19"17 lap on MC4 with the boosting strategies, bettering Pierre's and Sami's lap slightly. Kalle has also passed Pierre on SR score to become #4 on PAL! Well done Kalle! On NTSC, Jamie White slightly improved his KB1 5-lap NTSC WR to 0'51"59.

    PAL version had a few other active karters this week. UK karter, Gavin Ward made an impressive run into the Kings this week with some great records including a sub 1'00" on VL2 and some others which were previously much weaker Elite times. He now stands at King G overall, #40 on PAL and he passed a former British champion from 1996,  Matt Leech for #7 in the U.K. Arno van den Barselaar continued his PRs on all round courses making it to Pro C overall and #74 on PAL. Pierre L'Hoëst improved two of his records, they were DP1 5-lap and VL2 1-lap.

    The NTSC version had Christophe Paquin once again very active in SMK with several new records. More of his times are pushing up to the Legends as he reaches Legend G overall and passes Ray Bergstrom in the process for #19 on NTSC. Ray did however hit some new records closing in to the Legend G overall mark. He will probably reach it for next week and compete with Christophe. Martin Morissette improved 3 of his times cutting a few SR points down. Simon Laflamme improved his KB1 times after using the faster strategy and has made great progress there so far. Jason Fraser improved CI1 times and is closing in on Legend F.