NEW MEMBERS

    Two new members to the site this week!

    First, from the Netherlands we have Job Vis, who joins the PAL Rankings at #93 with an overall standard of Semi-Pro A on PAL.

    On NTSC, our new member is Russell Thomason from U.S.A who makes his entry to the NTSC rankings with a Semi-Pro A overall standard and #68 placing on the NTSC List.

NEW PHOTO IN GALLERY

    A new photo of Dutch karters has been added to the SMK photo gallery. They had a big SMK gathering, check it out in the photo gallery.

NEW VIDEO FILE

    Gerard Roodhorst has provided us with a video file of his GV1 technique. Sébastien Holmière hosted the link on a page, it is also written down on the SMK Proof page. You have to right-click the link to save it. Check out the SMK proof of times page.

PR UPDATES

    Pierre L'Hoëst continued his attack on PAL WRs by greatly improving his own on MC4 5-lap to 1'37"17 and taking the 1-lap WR to 0'19"00!! He also set a few other good records. On NTSC, Simon Laflamme and Martin Morissette had a battle over BC1 5-lap, both made very good attempts but Martin stood out on top, taking Jamie's 5-lap record there to 1'26"88! Meanwhile, Japanese Champion, Mitsuya Mikan took back MC1 WRs to 0'58"23 and 0'11"47! Chris Balch also stayed active on NTSC, squeezing past Louis-Philippe Sabbagh for #4 in Canada and #7 in the World on NTSC. Gabriel Laflamme also improved some records getting up to Semi-Pro E overall standard.

    Dutch karters continued a tough battle with Gerard Roordhorst setting two strong PRs and claiming the GOD standard overall. Karel van Duijvenboden catching very fast now in the Legend A with his first Dutch record on BC3 1-lap! Raphael Braun is also very close to reaching GOD now after setting some strong VL times. Willem van Voorst also had a good week with VL2 PRs that got him past some karters, including Edwin Peeters to make him #5 in the Netherlands and #22 on PAL.

    In Germany, Armin Huber continued to set Legend times, his MC1 records getting faster too. He also passed Edwin Peeters and stayed ahead of Willem to be #21 on PAL. Matthias Boucher from France was also in close competition as he secured the #25 spot after several improvements and a Legend G standard overall. He is now also #11 in France! Andreas Runnelid did a nicelap for DP2 and some stronger VL1 PRs that have helped him up to #54 and a bit closer to passing the next karter in Sweden.

NEW MEMBER

    We have a new member to PAL this week, as Axel Descamps from France joins Time Trials at #76 on PAL with a PAL overall standard of Master C. Welcome to the site!

NEW VIDEO FILES

    This week Martin Morissette gave us the link to his amazing 1'26"88 NTSC WR of Bowser Castle 1 5-lap. You can view the video file at the link here http://membres.lycos.fr/morissettesmk/ or visit the SMK Proof of Times page, the link has been added there aswell.

    A video of Chris Balch's new record this week can be seen at http://timeofdeath.net/KB1-5lap-5019-cb.avi. Again the link can be found via the SMK Proof page. The link takes you to all of Chris's video files where the above one can be found.

PR UPDATES

    Firstly, my apologies for having to check PRs early this week, those which didn't make it to the update early will be able to see your PRs in next week's update. Anyhow, this week we saw Japanese Champion, Mitsuya Mikan setting some great new improvements to his NTSC MC1 records which are now down to 0'57"85 and 0'11"42!! Chris Balch also had a great week as he finally landed the WR he wanted on KB1 with 0'50"19! The video file can be seen on the proof page. Chris also made some other large cuts off other records and made it to #6 in the World on NTSC! Jason Fraser improved his BC3 lap time a fair amount. Dean Barnhart also dropped by with a quick CI1 PR.

    On PAL we had a bit of activity with Karel van Duijvenboden setting a very fast lap time for BC3, which just missed the WR! Andreas Runnelid improved slightly on MC2 1-lap and Gerard Roordhorst cut a bit down from his MC1 5-lap time.

JAPANESE RECORDS

    It has been quite an exciting week as a few of the karters from Mitsuya Mikan's website in Japan have emailed us! They have presented us with a link to some extremely fast records done by Japanese players using NBT. These were created using emulators, which we assume at this stage were for testing, to see what the game's potentials were by using saved states to drive the best possible laps. Some of these strategies are insane, you simply have to check them out to believe it if you haven't done so already:

http://jyouhou777.hp.infoseek.co.jp/

    Note that the actual Japanese WRs are slower and have also been recorded on the website of another Japanese karter. The karter's name on the page is Donnki- and he is a very talented SMK player.  The site hosts World Records (we have discovered that they already listed records from our site aswell) and some strategy pages. It seems their knowledge of the NBT is very strong. The website can be found here:

http://f31.aaacafe.ne.jp/~smkt/top.htm

    So what happens next? Well, we are hoping in due course to have some new Japanese karters to join the site, and it seems we are establishing some sort of link between the two SMK communities which is really great! Stay tuned for more news soon!

NEW MEMBER

    Our main suprise this week is the entry of the Japanese karter Donnki- to the website. His name is Masakazu Goto, and is the first of the new members to send in all 40 records to join the SMK NTSC World Rankings. As mentioned, he is a strong user of some of the NBTs! He already has taken 10 WRs on NTSC! He is well into the GOD standard overall and has a World Ranking of #4 so far! There are several courses that he hasn't karted as much, but there is potential and it looks as though he is active in SMK, so expect more from him in the near future! Masakazu Goto is now the overall Champion of Japan. Welcome to the site Masakazu!

NEW VIDEO LINKS

    New video links have been provided this week. Sébastien Holmière's 3 recent WRs have videos that are now linked off the SMK Video Files page. Also you can view the MC1 lap WR of Julien Holmière which is linked from the videos page. Karel van Duijvenboden has a link to his BC3 lap WR which he recently drove. Gerard Roodhorst's Rainbow Road lap also has a link to a video file. Check out the SMK Videos and proof page to see these links.

    Special thanks to Sébastien Holmière for helping to put these videos online for us all to see!

PR UPDATES

    Many WRs have been broken this week! Chris Balch made some impressive new WRs on KB1 with the big barrier broken and the 5-lap down to 0'49"78 and the fastlap at 0'09"56!! He has a video of his 49 second time available on the videos page. He also used some NBT and made a new WR on Mario Circuit 3 with 1'29"17. He has cut a large amount off of his SR and is catching Stanley Jeram very fast. Christophe Paquin worked on SMKs trick times this week and set some new WRs and other PRs. The trick times do not count for any part of the ranking or SR score, but have still been fun to do. Check out his profile, the Top 100s and the WRs page to see what Christophe has achieved. On PAL, Sébastien Holmière has also made some great new records, including a new PAL WR on Mario Circuit 1 of 1'00"57! Double WRs followed on CI2 with 1'10"26 and 0'13"31! Karel van Duijvenboden smashed many of his times, but the best part was his great lap at BC3 of 0'17"91! He has now passed Gerard Roodhorst to become #11 on PAL and #2 in the Netherlands. However they are still very close in ranking, so expect another battle next week! French Champion, Pierre L'Hoëst learned of a new MC2 strategy from the Japanese karters and has tested it out on PAL; he lowered the MC2 lap WR to 0'14"17 with the new strat! Sami Çetin got some time in to kart and managed to slightly lower his KB2 NBT record that crept ahead of the WR to 0'58"40. He also drove a consistent 0'52"37 on KB1.

    Other activity in the Netherlands has Gerard Roodhorst setting some very fast times on Rainbow Road to keep up with the pace of Karel and maintain his lead from Raphael Braun. Michael Jongerius chipped in on BC3 aswell and made a nice pair of PRs there. Willem van Voorst improved both his VL times greatly to make it to Legend F overall and #20 on PAL. In Germany, Armin Huber climbed to Legend F with his new PRs and also reached #21 on PAL. Mario Brüser made it to Elite B with 8 new PRs, including a bigger cut for Rainbow Road. In the U.K, Matthew McCarthy worked on DP3 with some nice results and a few points off his SR Score. In Sweden, Andreas Runnelid made a decent KB1 time that cut down a few points. Duarte-Leite Frederic of France improved 3 PRs and climbed to Legend E overall standard, #16 on PAL and #8 in France. On NTSC, Dean Barnhart improved DP1 lap and BC1 5-lap. Gabriel Laflamme karted with Mario and set some PRs that took him up to Semi-Pro D on NTSC. Ray Bergstrom set 3 PRs that got him closer to Legend E overall.

NEW MEMBER

    A new NTSC karter from U.S.A joins the SMK Time Trials this week. We welcome Michael Hart to the site who joins the NTSC World Rankings at #71 with a Semi-Pro D overall standard.

PR UPDATES

    Another week of new World Records! France's 2nd fastest karter, Sébastien Holmière set a lot of fast records this week, including taking Donut Plains 1 from Pierre L'Hoëst with new PAL World Records of 1'13"55 and 0'14"29! His SR score has cut down quite a bit. Pierre L'Hoëst improved his MC2 PAL World Records with the NBT and long boost to 1'14"82 and 0'13"97! Axel Descamps sent in a selection of new PRs from different cups this week and cut some points down. Michael Jongerius made quick progress on Ghost Valley 3 with a new PAL WR of 1'15"40! On NTSC, Japanese Champion Masakazu Goto has been improving Mario Circuit 4 well and has set a very fast 5-lap along with a new WR fastlap of 0'18"51! The SR cut has helped him up to 3rd place on NTSC!

    Other Dutch activity included Gerard Roodhorst in a close battle on Ghost Valley 3 who tied the previous WR at 1'15"58 but later lost it to Michael. He also set some fast DP3 records and a decent time for Rainbow Road. Karel van Duijvenboden made some good PRs including a good shot at the GV3 lap and just managed to defend his position from Gerard Roodhorst.

    In the U.K, Sami Çetin made a PR with the long boost at MC2 and Matthew McCarthy worked hard on the DP courses setting some great PRs. In Germany, Armin Huber fought well with some good records to try to reach Willem van Voorst. At the moment he remains in the same position but is very close.. the battle continues! In Sweden, Andreas Runnelid hit KB1 and KB2 well with Bowser and cut some good points down. Back on NTSC, Yves Daniel arrived with long list of fast PRs, all of them in the Legends and above, this helped him cut further into the Legend C standard overall. Ray Bergstrom improved his BC2 PRs this week.