World Records
Eric Habrich was on top of his game during this time period, setting 6 World Records! Not to be outdone, Michael Jongerius stole Habrich's two Kalimari Desert World Records. Also, Myles Bukrim set some record breaking short-cut World Records, including being the first one to hit a GOD time at Yoshi's Valley short-cut lap!
Comebacks
There were also several players who submitted times this week for the first time in quite awhile! Most notably, original member and member of the feared 4, Jason Engel submitted two new PR's after a nearly 7 year absence! Legendary short-cutter Ben Miller, motivated by Myle's Bukrim's Yoshi's Valley short-cut lap WR, improved his lap time there as well, also, Marius Hukkelas hit some new records after a long hiatus from the game.
New Players
Welcome to new players Jeremy Brown, Clay McElveen, Casey Crites, and Lucas Oliver!
Big Movers
New player, Clay McElveen moved from spot #227 to #153 during this time. Also moving big were: Matthew Little (#241-#230), and Kyle Simon (#142-#113)
The Best of the Rest
Other notable players during this time were...
- Tim Everett: Tm passed Jonathan Bernier, passing into the top 10 overall spot! Congratulations Tim!
- Jeffrey Gutierrez: Jeff passed Peter Elsaesser, moving from spot #19 to #18.
- Cooper Lovera: Coop passed Finn Berger into spot #31
- Andy Launspach: Andy hit several great times, including a top 30 and top 20 times at Donkey Kong's Jungle Parkway 3-lap and fastlap respectively. Behind the strength of his PR's, he moves up two spots to #63, one spot behind Pier-Yves Lemire.
- Martin McMullan: Martin isn't hitting PR's as frequently as he used to, but he is still a solid player, now up 3 spots to #81.
- Richard Keyser: Richard moved up 2 spots to #88.
- Dean Barnhart: Dean improved 2 spots to #95
- Chris Rogers: Passes Tony Nguyen into spot #136.
- Robin Usher: Our only Japanese player improved 3 spots to #263 and up a rank from Intermediate D to C.
- Jed Grabman: Jed advanced from Apprentice B to A and to spot #277.
World Records
There has been loads of WR action lately. Michael Jongerius beat both of Eric Habrich’s KD WR’s with times of 1'44"42* (2'05"55) and 32"74*(39"37). Eric compensated the loss by crushing Sami Cetin’s old WS 3lap by nearly half a second and taking Ben Miller’s MMF flap by nearly a tenth. Those WR’s now stand at 3'39"55*(4'23"99) and 23'40*(28"14). He also improved his own WS flap WR to 1'12"40*(1'27"05). The greatest thing about those WS records is that Eric set them on the same run! These are currently the only WR’s that have been set during one single run. Eric also tied MJ’s CM 3lap WR at 1'37"48**(1'57"21). Myles Bukrim came out of inactivity about a month ago and is making some huge SC WR’s. He is the first karter to make God in YV SC flap with a new WR time of 7"48*(8"99). Now TT SC flap is the only unachieved God time. He also improved his old DKJP SC flap pr by 0"01 making it a WR tie with Alex Penev at 3"75**(4"51).
POW - Week 2
With 4 new WRs, Eric Habrich makes a great comeback and earns this week's award.
Battle between the #1 and #2 ranked non-shortcut players
The top story is the battle between the #1 and #2 ranked players Michael Jongerius and Eric Habrich. Eric got 5 different new World Records this week, of which he stole 3 from Michael. Michael got 2 WRs back, although the latest one isn't in this update yet. Michael's lead on the Players List and Average Finish rankings is still quite big, but Eric is getting closer. He narrowed the AvgFin gap from 1.2 to 0.9 points for example.
GOD standard beaten on Yoshi Valley SC flap
In shortcuts, Myles Bukrim kept hitting great shortcut times. With his 7"48 WR time on YV SC flap, he's the first person to reach the GOD standard on that track. on the Player List and on the SC AvgFin rankings he passed Louis Philippe Sabbagh for 4th place, behind Steven Gutierrez.
Activity in high Legend ranks
Some other high ranked Legend players were active: William Lacey hits a couple PRs to improve his stats a little. Michael Liem hit his first PR in 10 months. Kevin Booth improved his YV SC lap time. Tim Everett improved his weakest track Moo Moo Farm, and greatly improved all his statistics that way. His ARR score went from 1.500 to 1.156 for example. He's #11 on the Players List and he climbed from #16 to #11 on the AvgFin rankings. Jeffrey Gutierrez improved his ARR score from 2.125 to 2.063.
Lower ranked Legend players
Finn Berger, Cooper Lovera, Josh Caudle and Tuomas Dunkel were active here. No spectacular jumps this time. But they just kept doing what they have been doing for months now: setting PRs and improving their stats. They all seem to have much potential left.
Kings: Martin McMullan reaches King F
Congrats to Martin McMullan. A 0.6 points ARR cut was exactly enough to reach King F. Nathan Stinson got 6 different shortcut PRs and moved from 30th place (King D) to 26th place (King C) on the Players List. The Launspach/Pugh/Lemire trio had a quiet week, but just like the lower legend group of players they did stay active by getting a couple PRs.
Elites
Richard Keyser (Elite A), Dean Barnhart (Elite B) and Stephen Regat (Elite F) all improved their ARR scores by around 0.5-0.8 points. For Richard that meant a rank promotion (from Elite B to Elite A).
Sub-elite
Chris Rogers moved from Pro D to Pro A and passed 17 players on the Players List. Tianyi Liu made a small non-SC improvement. Drew Kostecki went from Expert B to Semi-pro F. Matthew Little went from Intermediate A to Advanced C. Robin Usher went from Apprentice A to Intermediate D. Jed Grabman went from Apprentice D to Apprentice B.
New member: Clay McElveen
Welcome to Clay McElveen from the USA. He joins at 227th place on the Players List and he's ranked Expert F. He also submitted all 20 shortcut times, so he's even ranked on the Universal AvgFin rankings page. He's ranked on the last place there, but since he's getting new PRs every day that should be changing soon.
Eric Habrich - Kalimari Desert 3lap World Record: 1'44"46
Enjoy it! A higher quality file of this movie is also available, but you'd need to contact Eric or other players who have it, by AIM.
New Players
Speaking of new players, we had 4 new ones this week: Matthew Little, Jed Grabman, Matthew Danny Seidman, and Adam Anders. Danny Seidman is the highest ranked of them, coming in just ahead of Michael Verlint at #172!
Legends: Active Legends!
There was a lot of activity in the Legend ranks. In fact, there were more active Legend karters than here were other ranked karters combined this week (not counting new players)! Eric Habrich, the current #1 ranked NTSC player, improved his Moo Moo Farm fastlap, hitting a 7th ranked time overall. William Lacey hit his first PR's in over 7 months, improving at Kalimari Desert and Luigi Raceway. With Thanks to his pr's,Tim Everett is now the #5 ranked NTSC player. Myles Bukrim became Legend A at short-cuts, in the process becoming the new #1 ranked NTSC player at short-cuts. He also improved his Mario Raceway 3-Lap time. Jeffrey Gutierrez entered the top 10 NTSC players at #10 exactly. Finn "the turtle" Berger concentrated heavily on his Sherbet Land 3-Lap time, getting it into the top 25. Cooper Lovera continued his impressive playing, including hitting a Sherbet Land 3-Lap time that passed both Finn Berger and Jeffrey Gutierrez and a fastlap time that tied with Simon LaFlamme. His pr's helped him improve from #35-#32 overall. Tuomas Dunkle Only had one PR, at Donkey Kong's Jungle Parkway.
Kings: Pugh on the climb!
Trystan Pugh is deffinately one of the hottest active karters! With his PR's, he but .6 off of his ARR , passed Pier-Yves Lemire and Andy Launspach in overall rankings, went from King D to King , and went from #65 to #60 overall. Andy Launspach continues to improve his fastlaps, slightly improving his already great Donkey Kong's Jungle Parkway fastlap (now a Legend B time) and significantly improving his Choco Mountain fastlap (to King A).
Elites and Beyond
In the lower ranks:
- Martin McMullan continues to inch closer to King.
- Richard Keyser improved several times
- Chris Rogers improved his Sherbet Land times and jumped from #156 to #154 in overall rankings.
- Michael Verlint hit many PR's as well, improving from #177 to #173 overall.
Last Update
No, this isn't my last ever update, just my last for a little over a week :-). I am going to be on a mission trip to Mexico, so Michael Liem will be doing the news update next week. Keep Karting!
Myles Bukrim has made a brilliant comeback to the game after many years of "retirement" by submitting plenty of new prs, including 3 WRs, driven during last month. He lowered his own YV sc 3lap WR (thereby breaking the tie with Greg Ihnatenko) just one day after returning to kart (May 11th). The new time is 27"93* (33"58) and the splits were 9"27-9"33-9"33. Doesn't get much faster than that. Myles also got 2 other WRs on RRa sc, the fastlap on May 19th and the 3lap 9 days later. Fastlap is also an improvement from his own previous WR, and now stands at 31"79* (38"22) (0"09 improvement). The 3lap WR is probably the most impressive, as he destroyed Ben Miller's previous mark of 1'41"62 (2'02"19) with a new time of 1'41'25* (2'01"74). The difference was made on laps 1 and 2 (the ones with no warp glitch): 34"28-34"22-32"75 for Myles against 34"44-34"39-32"79 for Ben.
The other 2 WRs are brought to you by Eric Habrich, taking out both Kalimari Desert WRs. The course now stands at 1'44"46* (2'05"60), with laps of 34"87, 35"73 and 33"86. That's a 0'04 improvement on the previous WR held by Michael Jongerius. The gap is even closer on the fastlap (just 0'01 between him and MJ), with a new fastlap of 32"76* (39"39).
POW - Week 1 (1st-8th)
The last 4 pow awards have gone to either Cooper Lovera or Trystan Pugh, and this time again they battled for it. Cooper reached Legend D with a .6 ARR cut and passed 3 karters on the AvgFin ranks, while Trystan cut 1 point off his ARR, going from King D to King C and moving up 10 places.
I wish I could split the award when that sort of situation arises...
On the non-shortcut NTSC rankings, Tim Everett passed Marcelo Almeida dos Reis for 5th place and Jeffrey Gutierrez managed to reach 10th place. Cooper Lovera, Josh Caudle and Andy Launspach were nice climbers.
On the PAL rankings Trystan Pugh was the biggest climber on both non-shortcut and shortcut.
Kings: 3 players from 3 different generations
Pier-Yves Lemire, Andy Launspach and Trystan Pugh were active in this section. They're ranked fairly close to eachother. Could be a nice battle between players of 3 different generations: Andy joined over 7 years ago, Pier joined almost 3 years ago and Trystan joined earlier this year.
Elite and lower: Welcome to Wouter Jansen
In the elite ranks Richard Keyser, Dean Barnhart and Stephen Regat were active. Chris Rogers went from Semi-Pro D to Pro D. Drew Kostecki went from Advanced A to Expert D.
And we can welcome one new player. Wouter Jansen, a famous Goldeneye player who's ranked #2 in the world at that game, joined our site. He mainly plays shortcuts and is only a few improvements short of reaching Elite F there.
POW - Week 4 (25th-31st)
Trystan Pugh ended up the month in style, submitting over 20 prs during this week. For a more detailed description of his performance, just check Nathan's update, I can't add much more than that ;)
POM - May
With Trystan and Cooper Lovera both receiving 2 POW awards during that month and both being active during the whole month, that award had to be decided between the 2 of them (Finn Berger, Tuomas Dunkel, Martin McMullan, Richard Keyser and Tronn Are Johansen all made strong improvements, but were no match for Trystan and Cooper). Cooper went from King B to Legend F and jumped 15 ranks; he also got to Elite D in sc. As for Trystan, he made about the same progression at the King level, going from Elite B to King D, jumping 25 places in the process. Not an easy decision...
POS - Spring
This is from March to May. Despite the fact that the site was down during most of April, there still were plenty of fast rises up the ranks. 6 karters retained our attention:
-Jeffrey Gutierrez: although not as active lately as he used to be, the season as a whole has been very beneficial for Jeffrey, as he more than halved his ARR score, going from King A to Legend B! He also made an impact on the sc ranks, with a 3 points ARR cut and a Legend D rank.
-Tuomas Dunkel: still relatively new back in March, Tuomas really flew up the ranks. Very consistent throughout the season, he managed to earn a Legend rank a few days ago. Judging from his latest MMF flap pr, he still has lots of potential left. He used to be known as a great mkdd player, he's now better known for mkdd's predecessor.
-Cooper Lovera: another very fast climber. He was King B back in March, he's now Legend F, and edging closer to Legend D, with an ARR of 4.813.
-Trystan Pugh: a 7 point ARR cut allowed him to go from Elite D to King D and pass more than 50 karters.
-Martin McMullan: way down the rankings in March, but strong and frequent prs have helped him enter the top 100 in Non-sc and top 50 in sc, with Elite A and Elite B ranks, respectively. He had to stop karting in the middle of May because of exams, but it shouldn't be long till we see him in the King ranks whenever he comes back to karting.
-Ryan Duescher: very active during the beginning of the season, he became Legend in sc, starting with a King C position.
As usual, all winners can be found on the 2004 POW page.
