World no. 6 William Lacey has been making that time on Moo Moo Farm count by improving his 3lap to 3rd and flap to 7th, moving him 0.4 AF closer to Jeffrey Gutierrez. Luke Barnard continued his quest for GOD on such tracks as YV and DKJP and moved himself into the top 20 at 18. John Falls Marshall continued his unstoppable march up to the charts, cutting another 4.25 from his AF to reach 31st. Maurice Fleer made some small cuts to finally break into the top 50 at 49.
Over on SC, Zoran Tintor broke into the top 10 with a 2.8 AF cut. He’s also very close to no. 9, Mike Simmons. John moved up yet again to 15th to add to his fantastic progress. Matthias Rustemeyer went up to 127th with a cut of nearly 14 while Johnny Hengel passed fellow Wisconsin resident Jon Barber for 146th. Fabien Da Silva just can’t stop getting PRs, jumping up to 170th with a cut of 32 while Marcos Vinicius Alves hopped up a place to 220th.
Outside the top 50 on nonSC, your much-maligned news writer held off the AAA for another couple of weeks by moving up a couple of places to 64th, while Jivago Pacheco da Silva added to his huge cuts last month with a more moderate improvement that gets him to 72nd. AAA members Vincent Zee and Matt Nissenbaum were both on the move, Vincent passing Matt to reach 79th while Matt kept close with some PRs of his own and made it to 81st. The last member of that rivalry, Cole Gilbert, also edged up a couple of places to 89th. Once again, Fabien Da Silva outclassed everyone with an incredible AF cut of nearly 59 to come flying into the top 100 at 99!
More familiar names were on the move as we move outside the top 100. Jacob Goldfinger again made sure that Marcos Vinicius Alves didn’t pass him by moving up to 120, but Marcos moved closer by getting up to 126. Johnny Hengel made some small cuts to hop into 150th spot while Nicola Gatti went up two to 189. Two new players from January had huge cuts just outside the top 200: Matt Vanderwouw went up from 283rd to 222nd with a 67 point cut, but Nicolas Outerovitch still managed to pass him with an even bigger 85 point cut! Guilherme Arantes somehow found himself getting passed by both men even though he made some cuts of his own to move up 9 places to 224.
Matthias Rustemeyer got in on the new player rush with a 37 AF cut that moved him up to 258th and Joseph Carpenter was another karter breaking a barrier, getting into the top 400 at 396. Fabio Sacco, Tyler Wishall and Terry Doleschal all made decent cuts to reach 431, 433 and 445 respectively.
One new player for the first half of February:
Brad Howard – 338th – Semi-Pro D
And that’s all for this update! I’ll go back to working on DKJP and bothering Lacey, but I’ll take a break from that in a couple of weeks to bring you some more kart action.
It just wouldn’t feel right starting a news update if I didn’t mention SC world champion Vincent Tolhuis. Not only did he tie the YV SC flap WR with Ben Miller, he also took the PAL WR on KD SC 3lap from Alex Penev and a second PAL WR on the same track’s flap. He even found the time to play some non-SC, improving his SL flap enough to take him up 2 places to 13th on the AF chart. Zoran Tintor stayed in 14th but moved even closer to Kevin Booth, now less than 0.2 AF behind. John Falls Marshall and Maurice Fleer both moved up another spot in the second half of January, now sitting at 16 and 18. Could all three men be in the top ten before long?
Over on non-SC, Luke Barnard has been working on improving some of the weaker times in his set and paid particular attention to DKJP. Luke has now moved up to 23rd and has his sights set on overall GOD this year. Given the improvements of the last two weeks, I wouldn’t bet against him.
Now for the part you’ve all been waiting for: the MMF battle between three kart legends: William Lacey, Finn Berger and…me. Ok, two kart legends and the news writer. Darius moved up a place to 66th by breaking his flap and then tying Finn’s 3lap, but Finn responded with a GOD flap and a new Legend B 3lap that moved him up four places to 32nd and helped him to pass long-time target Michael Liem. Meanwhile, Lacey showed us all how it’s done with his first PR since August 2006, improving his flap to 28”29 and tying Jeffrey Gutierrez for 10th. Impressively, Lacey has almost certainly done more karting than anyone else this month and has an ‘A’ imprinted on his thumb to show for it.
In the midst of all this, John Falls Marshall moved up yet again, climbing two more places to 37th and putting himself on the brink of Legend A. Just below John, Nathan Stinson made some cuts but remained in 42nd, while Richard Keyser made a comeback after a long period of absence and moved up a place to 54. Iacopo Sorce finally shook off the King of Kings title, passing that dubious honour to David Taylor. A few places below, Jivago Pacheco da Silva absolutely rocketed up the charts into 76th with a 455 point AF cut! Not only is Jivago’s cut incredible, he also fulfilled the important task of pushing Matt Nissenbaum and Vincent Zee down another place. Unfortunately, they still made some cuts to get to 83 and 86 respectively, but I’ve been told on good authority that they’ll never catch their rivalry leader. Whoever he is.
Outside the top 100, a group of players have really been tearing up the charts, starting with Jacob Goldfinger, who moved up another 21 places in the second half of January to reach 130th. Marcos Vincius Alves continues to chase Jacob, but he was only able to climb 11 places to 140th, so Jacob has some breathing space again. Johnny Hengel moved up to 153, while new player Fabien Da Silva, no.2 on the MKDS PRB charts, is improving rapidly, picking up the Player of the Month award despite only being on the charts for half of it! He’s now in 159th. Nicola Gatti, another top MKDS player, also had a very strong rookie month, ending up in 193rd.
If you thought the crazy cuts were done there, think again. Guilherme Arantes sliced a massive 137.6 in January from his AF to leap up to 233rd place, 63 places higher than two weeks ago! The new player frenzy continued lower down as Matt Vanderwouw joined and then proceeded to smash all his times within the last week of January. He’s currently in 283rd, but with a load more new times on the way. Matthias Rustemeyer also wasted no time after joining last update, moving up 26 places to break the top 300 at 297. Markus Hobelsberger was yet another new player quickly improving his rank, up 41 places to 335 and just behind him Alvin van Asselt made a nice AF cut of just over 37 to climb into 337th. Joseph Carpenter was the last mover of the last couple of weeks on non-SC, up 18 places from his original ranking to reach 405.
Jivago also shattered his old SC times, cutting 77 AF to move up to 54 over on the SC rankings. Johnny Hengel added to his non-SC cuts with a small SC cut to get to 148, while Matthias went up 15 places after joining in the first half of January. Alvin also had a small move on SC, up to 234.
New players from the second half of January:
Fabien Da Silva – 159 – Elite A – 301 SC
Nicola Gatti – 193 – Elite C
Matt Vanderwouw – 283 – Pro D
Franz Trawniczek – 302 – Semi-Pro A – 184 SC
Nicolas Outerovitch – 308 – Semi-Pro A
And I think that’s all… *collapses*. There certainly was plenty going on there, from old and new players alike, so great job to everyone who made cuts! I’ll be back again in a couple of weeks to bring you all the action from the first half of February, so you keep on karting and I’ll keep on playing MMF and wondering why I put myself through it.
January POM
Guilherme Arantes had a great month with consistent cuts of 30 AF each week. Marcos Vinicius Alves did some impressive cuts to pass 40 people and reach the King ranks. John Falls Marshall had yet another strong month, reaching Legend B in SC and coming up on the border of Legend A in non-SC. But the Player of the Month was Fabien Da Silva. He joined halfway through the month but spent the rest of it cutting down all his PRs multiple times, ending up at a very nice Elite A.
