NEW PAL MEMBER

    A new PAL member from the U.K this week, Neil Rowntree. Neil told us that he was recruited by Dan Hooper and used to play SMK competitively with him. This was a few years back now, but Neil has decided to pick up the controller again. He now stands at #20 on the PAL Players' List, and is #2 in the U.K! His overall standard so far is King F! We look forward to hearing more from Neil's times.

STANLEY JERAM'S VIDEO FILES

    I forgot to add this link last week, so I will do it now. Some of you already know that NTSC World Champion, Stanley Jeram has been making some video files of his times. Eventually he will have all of his video files up for you to see, but so far has got a few up. They are all downloadable zip files. The link has been added to the 'Super Mario Kart Proof of times Page' where it will be normally accessed from, but i will also put the link here:

http://www24.brinkster.com/sjvideofiles/

CORRECTION TO JOAKIM'S SR

    Joakim Alderborn's SR has been checked over this week as there was posible an error there and there was. His SR was actually 9.425 which makes him King C overall and #15 in the World on PAL! His SR had not been re-checked since he used to play a lot last year, so we may need to keep track of the SRs more carefully. Many karters calculate their SRs themselves, which means that they can get double checked along the way. This will help us more in future.

THIS WEEK'S UPDATES

    Not too much PRs this week comparing with previous weeks, but still some exciting new WRs, climbs up the ladder, and other PRs from around the world! Simon Laflamme sent in two great Bowser Castle 2 WRs last week which were not on the update for some reason, so here they are: 1'40"96!, 0'19"89! He didn't stop there as he went on to the Ghost Valleys with a great 4/5 on GV1, but his greatest moment was on Ghost Valley 3. He managed to land a shattering 1'14"06 5-lap WR with a 0'14"62 1-lap WR!! Simon is getting this on tape to Stan sometime soon. He is also by SR score catching Stan pretty fast, so he better watch out, cos Simon Laflamme could have a chanceat the #1 spot soon.

    Other activity not too far behind was for Guillaume Sylvain. I had some problem seeing Guillaume's times on the spreadsheet yesterday, but in the end, found a way which I could se them, but it took quite a while messing around with a floppy disk and two computers. Hopefully things can be back to normal there soon, because it was probably due to my brother's computer, which is quite old now. Anyway, after retrieving all of Guillaume's up to date records, it has shown that he now Legend G overall with some great new times, including MC1 going to the lower 1'00"s, with an 11"95 lap, and many other fast Legend times, along with a few King. Thomas Harrington is following closely behind Sylvain after improving his weaker courses to King times and a few Legend. He will be a Legend very soon, and will be from there on the trail towards the fastest players in the U.S and maybe reaching Jason Whalls to be #1 in U.S.A sometime. Thomas Harrington is now King A overall standard.

    A lot more PAL PRs this week from France as François Mangeol is making more King times. He hit 11 new records this week and has passed Christiaan Tieman as a result. His SR score remains at Elite A standard overall, but he will reach the Kings in no time! Archibald Lefevre has returned with a few records this week on the weaker courses, made two King times on MC2 and two Legend on GV3. Altogether taking down 3 SR points, he continues to fight his way through towards Legend C.

    Michael Jongerius sent in a few PR this week, one being a super GOD time on Ghost Valley 2 1-lap! The others were some great Legend records on DP1 lap and BC1 both. This took down 8 SR points leaving Michael behind Paolo Petriella by 1 point. Thorsten Fellberg has continued to find PRing a bit harder, but is still getting there with some great times on his weaker courses. 4 King times and 2 Elite times were made this week by him. He arrived in an SR tie with Fredrik Björndahl, but lost the matchup so he remains behind him till he passes him by SR, which will be definitely made next time. He still has plenty of room left for improvement on many courses, and stands a good chance at challenging Kühn for the top spot in Germany. Andrew Kent has been going further with the PRs by improving on 6 of his times! These include MC1, DP1 & CI1. 2 of them Elite and 4 were King times, and this has taken his SR closer towards King D overall. Still a gap to reach more players, but he may be able to finally reach Ademir Cortes for the #1 in Australia position!

UPDATE ON STAN'S CALCULATOR OF SR

    Stanley Jeram has continued his work on the calculator for our SR scores, and has checked a few more SRs. Some slight changes to his, Louis-Philippe's and Nathan Stinsons SRs. Nathan is now in a tie with Travis Nelson, but loses on matchups, so Travis receives the 9th place spot and Nathan the 10th.

PRS THIS WEEK

    Kelly Malo has been tearing up the tracks this week with 19 super new records! He has hit more Legend times which were King before, GV2 jump has been done 2/5 for a 5-lap time at 1'02", so there is more room there, plenty of room as we see him make a great sub 12 second lap record! He hit some super MC1 times including a GOD lap, he may be after the sub 1'00" there sometime soon. His PRs have helped him climb to Legend D, and now Jason will have to watch out because he is likely to lose his position as #1 in U.S.A pretty soon. Also in U.S.A, we have news that Thomas Harrington is after that 1st place. He certainly has the potential, as he has joined the Legends this week at Legend G! He improved on a lot of his weaker races, and will continue to do so to reach Legend F soon and pass some players.

    Thomas has close competition now with Guillaume Sylvain who just broke his way through to Legend F with 12 new PRs making more Legend times for himself. Guillaume is another who is definitely following in the Stanley/Louis-Philippe/Simon footsteps with his PRs. It will be an interesting competition when he reaches the higher Legends, but for now he has more positions to pass in the Legend F standard. We will see next week! Simon Laflamme played only MC1 this week taking off an SR point. His target was a sub 1'00" and after many failed attempts, some of which were really good, he gave up at a 1'00"07 time. His lap was improved also, he definitely has potential to get there as with Kelly Malo.

    Dan Hooper from U.K was our recent entry to the site and has already been PRing like mad! His new times proving dangerous to nearby Kings, as he already climbs to King F from Elite A. He is ranked at #21 on the PAL Players' List now, he passed Matt Leech (a former U.K Champion in 1996) and is right behind Neil Rowntree at #3 in the U.K. Andrew Kent continues his quest for #1 in Australia with 6 more PRs, all King times. Those included GV2, GV3 and VL2. VL2 is nearly going sub 1'00" and Andrew's SR is closing in towards King D overall!

    Raphael Braun returned from a break of SMK with quite a few new records for Mushroom, Flower and Special Cups. Amongst them were King and Legend times that have helped the Champion of Switzerland, Raphael Braun reach Legend G overall, not being too far off from Petriella and Jongerius. Michael Jongerius did defend himself there a bit this week with a few Flower Cup records that cut 10 points off. Michael is now very close to former PAL World Champion, Edwin Peeters (currently #3 in Netherlands). Archibald Lefevre didn't cut a lot of SR score off this week as he is finding it more difficult, but did become the third person to break the 1'30"00 on BC1 PAL. He also improved his MC4 time a bit.

NEW PAL MEMBER

    A new member this week on PAL, Bertrand Voireuchon from France. Bertrand has some really good times on PAL so far and has reached #22 in the World on PAL, and #8 in France! His overall standard so far is King F, we look forward to hearing of any improvements from him. Welcome to the site Bertrand!

MY SUPRISE THIS WEEK : CHANGED MY PICTURE AT LAST!

    Yes, I have replaced my photo on the Photo Gallery Page with one taken at around lunch time last Saturday (10th November). Please take note that I had only 6, maybe 5 hours sleep the night before, that is why my eyes look a bit red. It was during lunch break at work. It wasn't a perfect photo either, so I will probably try to get a better one again. Extra news: Another pic has been sent in this week, from Lars Nouwen, who also announced that he will try to play SMK again soon.

DIRK OLSON'S VIDEO FILE

    A link has been put up on the SMK Proof page to Dirk Olson's video files. So far he has put up a 56 seconds on Koopa Beach 1 for us all to see. He is a player with great potential as we can see from his driving, maybe we will get more files soon. On other news, Stanley Jeram is also getting more video files up to his page.

UPDATES THIS WEEK

    There has been a lot of activity this week with 12 active SMK Players! Stanley Jeram has hit something fast on Mario Circuit 4 fastlap on his way to the GOD time with so far a 0'19"51 new WR! After that and a few other small improvements, his SR went past the -2.000 mark! Simon Laflamme has too been making great progress including not only breaking 1'00"00 on Mario Circuit 1 but also passing Stan's time for a new NTSC WR there at 0'59"92!! He has also taken KB1 5-lap even further and drove a nice 5-lap PR on Ghost Valley 2 without the use of the jump! This was also a GOD time! His SR is getting close to the -1.500 mark, it looks like Stan has defended his position pretty well this week, we will wait and see what else happens!

    Thomas Harrington has kept up all his great Karting all these weeks, and this week challanged the times and SR scores of some of the leading U.S.A Karters! He drove 3 new GOD times on CI2 lap and KB2 both, other than that were a mixture of Legend and King times. His SR is now past many karters including Joseph Hurtgen, making him #4 in U.S.A and #8 in the World on NTSC!! Dirk Olson has just passed Brian Gallo with his latest times which cut off a lot of his SR score too. Sadly he missed the King B standard by 1 point, but is sure to reach it by next week. U.S Elite Karter, Hue Le is back again and has been working on GV1 and 3, but mainly GV3 with the use of the jump, so far hitting times under 1'20" with a good matching lap. There is still a lot of potential left for this player on these courses, and others too. Hue Le's overall standard is still at Elite A, but is close enough to reach King G very soon!

    In the U.K, Neil Rowntree has had some serious competition with Dan Hooper as they both made a lot of PRs to fight over the 2nd place in the U.K. Neil hit some nice King times and an Elite time, but his best was for Bowser Castle 1 with super Legend F & Legend E times! He managed to reach King E overall but in the end, Dan Hooper took the lead with a slightly faster SR score and some fast all round King times with a few Elite. Thorsten Felberg also got caught up amonst the Rowntree-Hooper wars, but hit a lot of nice records this week, two of his MC3 races being Legend G times! Thorsten has also recahed King E as a result and is in #21 in the World on PAL! Raphael Braun also made a few improvements on some Star Cup courses and VL2 5-lap. VL2 5-lap nearly went under 1'00"00 and the others are strong Legend times and a GOD time. He has cut a bit of his SR score, and has passed the Champion of Italy, Paolo Petriella.

    François Mangeol was the other Karter who sent a lot of new times in this week. He drove a mixture of Elite and King times, and cut enough points off to make it through to the Kings at King G. He is also very close to King F, and may reach it soon. Archibald Lefevre has continued to make some decent PRs, some of which are really getting fast. Ghost Valley 2 has gone sub 1'03"00!! The lap record is also looking pretty sharp indeed! His DP1 has gone sub 1'18"00 with a nice lap. Lastly he karted MC2 with a pair of Legend G times, altogether taking his SR Score down that bit closer towards Legend C. Michael Jongerius continues to make some of those really fast PRs, this week suprising us all with a super set of GOD times for DP2! Vanilla Lake 1 went under 1'00" and he also hit a nice Legend C and Legend D set of times for Mario Circuit 3! He is definitely headed towards the top of the ladder in Dutch Karters, as he reaches #8 in the World on PAL and passes Edwin Peeters.

NEW PAL MEMBER

    Another new member this week on PAL, and it was Wouter Wynen from Belgium. Wouter has played a lot of SMK on MC1 mainly, but hadn't played for a long time. Now he is entering and has only played most of the courses with about two tries, and has already reached Master B standard overall and #42 on the PAL Players' List! This makes him #1 in Belgium so far! He definitely has the potential to reach the Elites in no time, and from there will go on to reach the Kings which he will also be able to do. A new Player with a lot of potential!

UPDATES THIS WEEK

    Quite a few players active this week including the return of some great players from earlier on this year!! Simon Laflamme once again makes a few new World Records, this time working on Bowser Castle 1 where he beat Louis-Philippe's amazing lap and the GOD time with an amazing 0'17"33 lap! He then went on to finish the race and drove a 1'27"81 5-lap WR! He has tried Rainbow Road a lot this week also and made so many failed attempts at the 5-lap WR, but did come close, and also close to a sub 17 second lap with his new 1-lap WR of 0'17"01 that beat Stan there! Simon's SR score is getting much close to Stan now....the battle continues!! Guillaume Sylvain improved some of his Mushroom Cup times including MC1, the lap of which was almost a GOD time! Also some Legend times on DP2 and RR, these all cut enough points off for Guillaume to climb up to #10 in the World on NTSC!! Hue Le from U.S.A stuck to GV1 this week and has landed the jump to the platform quite a few times and has a great new 5-lap and 1-lap time to go, both of them Legend F! He has now reached King G overall and #21 in the World on NTSC!!

    The SMK Champion of Italy, Paolo Petriella is back! He has spent some time improving his records and now has some great times to go in! Many of them are Legend, including some of his Mushroom and Special Cup times... He will be able to make many more improvements for sure in the future and climb to even higher ranks. So far his new records have taken his overall standard to Legend F overall and #8 in the World on PAL!! François Mangeol conitnues his impressive new times, with all round records on most of the cups. More of them are leaning towards the King standard and his SR has gone to King F overall, but François remains in #24 in the World on PAL for now. Bertrand Voireuchon has already been improving his PRs since his entry last week! Some of his times are looking good so far, and they have helped him climb to King E overall on PAL! Archibald Lefevre improving his weaker courses this week, including MC2 which he has not given up on, and may even reach a sub 1'18"00 there soon! He has got quite a few bonus points off his new VL1 1-lap PR, and he is now only a few points away from reaching Legend C overall! Andrew Kent has also PRed to climb to King D this week, his PRs included a new record of Australia on DP3 5-lap!

    Thorsten Fellberg is fighting his way through King E at the moment, and is on his way to King D after setting new times. These included a high 1'07" on GV1 and quite a few other King times! He will really start hitting more records of Germany when he reaches the King D standard overall. Michael Jongerius has made some more impressive Legend times which were driven on MC4, CI1 1-lap, DP3 & KB2. He is becoming one of the very best from the Netherlands, and is only a few points short from being Legend F overall! Serge Ludescher from Switzerland has returned to SMK with many new records! He has improved mainly his weaker courses, but has driven many King times! It looks as though he will follow Raphael Braun and challenge him to #1 position in Switzerland some day! Raphael improved only 2 records this week, they were on VL2, his lap of which was really great! Plenty of potential for the 5-lap!

NEW PAL MEMBER

    A new member to PAL from Ireland this week, Ian Cairns. Ian also plays MKSC and has made some great times there also. He has had SMK for many years, and his success in MKSC has inspired him to go back through his Mushroom Cup times. He is currently Champion of Ireland at Semi-Pro A and #53 on the PAL Players' List. But his latest records on Mushroom Cup are mainly Elite times, so he has a lot of potential so far and will go on to make more great times on the other courses and fly up the ranks soon!

THIS WEEK'S UPDATES : NEW NTSC WORLD CHAMPION!!

    It is now to be announced that Simon Laflamme is the new NTSC World Champion of Super Mario Kart!! He went to Vanilla Lake 2 this week which made him famous also for being the first to break the 10 second barrier with a fantastic 0'09"96 WR lap!! He also improved the 5-lap time to a nice 52 seconds, he may even get to beat Nathan's time there sometime later also. Simon has worked really hard on his PRs the past Months, so we must al congratulate him! Well done Simon!! Thomas Harrington has been climbing higher in the standard and ranking as he reaches Legend E and #7 in the World past Kevin Booth. Now only Kevin Booth and Jason Whalls stand in his way of becoming U.S Champion! He made a lot of PRs this week including some GOD times! Hue Le has also climbed a bit after playing BC1, GV2, CI2 & KB2 to King F overall and #20 on the NTSC Players' List! Keep it up Hue!

    In the UK, Dan Hooper is really getting to higher standards as he hits a lot of great new records this week! He is now gettign faster on the courses which he had weaker times on, more of his old Elite times are now King times, and he is starting to make one or two Legend. He has climbed to King D and is only a point off King C! He ranks now at #18 in the World on PAL and #2 in the UK. Joakim Alderborn is back with new records again! He is repeating his great skill from Bowser Castle 1 now on other courses, check out MC2!! DP1 is in the 1'18"s and DP2 under 1'30"00! Joakim has cut off a great amount off his SR once again and now ranks at King B overall standard! He will reach the Legends soon for sure! Andrew Kent after recalculating his SR and finding a slight error that wasn't in his favour, improved some PRs really well, regained his previous position, then surpassed it reaching King D overall standard! The Champion of Australia is somewhere within the King C standard, so Andrew is getting closer!

    Lars Nouwen is back!! Lars Nouwen is a Dutch SMK Player who joined in the summer and is karting like mad to reach higher positions on the PAL World Rankings and standards. His main target is to reach the Elites for now, but this guy has the ability to reach Kings and maybe even Legends if he keeps it up! So far he is a Master A SMK Player and is #42 on the PAL Players' List just ahead of Wouter Wynen, Champion of Belgium. Thorsten Fellberg is still on his way to reaching the #1 position in Germany, with 6 PRs this week, 4 of them King times and 2 Legend, he has reached King D overall and is #20 on the PAL Players' List! Archibald Lefevre has submitted a great new time on Vanilla Lake 1, the bonus points of which have helped him cut those SR points to be Legend C overall!

Continue to December 2001