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Sitting on top of the pile is Luke Barnard. One of our newest GODs, Luke reeled off PR after PR in the first few months of the year and soon made it to overall GOD on the main site and Legend+ on the 2008 site. He holds nine 2008 world records including his stunning 23"05 (27"72 PAL) on MR flap which is also the current overall WR. Less than half an AF point behind him, 2007 Player of the Year Zoran Tintor is having another terrific year. At Legend+ on both the main and 2008 sites, Zoran holds the 2008 WRs for TT flap and the double on SL. In third, the first ever GOD William Lacey is showing he still has the talent, the highlight of his year so far being his 2'13"03 on BC, taking the WR away from undisputed MK64 champion Michael Jongerius. Searching down the chart, you may be surprised to find MJ himself in 41st; but he currently only has 8 times set in 2008 and they're all 2008 WRs! 7 of them are also overall WRs, including his remarkable KD 3lap in which he went between the wheels of the train on the third lap to set his 2'05"33. Maurice Fleer is also well-placed in 4th and holds the 2008 RRd 3lap WR, although he will still need to make some very strong improvements to topple Luke or Zoran by the end of the year. Behind him a mix of older and newer names have assembled: Cooper Lovera, David Schiering, Finn Berger, Nathan Stinson and Marcos Vinicius Alves. Can the old players win out and prove they've still got it or will the new talent sweep past to announce their arrival as part of the elite?
Outside the top 10, a very interesting mix of players are jostling for position. Matt Nissenbaum leads the original AAA members in 11th with Robin Usher in 15th and Darius Austin lagging behind in 17th. Reports suggest Darius is planning a surge to take down his old rivals. New players such as Jacob Goldfinger, Willem Pieters, Nicholas Harvey and Rene Bauer take up other spots in the top 20 while Vincent Tolhuis languishes in 13th without a full timeset to his name. A glance down the charts reveals a number of experienced overall top 100 karters well behind, having set few times in 2008. Apart from MJ, this group also includes our newest GOD and world number seven Andre Hermanny (39th), Matthew Little (43rd), Cole Gilbert (44th), world number nine Lucas Oliver (46th), Pier-Yves Lemire (48th) and world number two Karlo Tomazelli (50th). With the potential of these players well above their current rank on the 2008 site, we may well see some full timesets coming soon to elevate them above the ranks of newer players who have set all their times this year.
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Unsurprisingly, shortcut world champion Vincent Tolhuis dominates the 2008 SC rankings as well. He holds 13 of the WRs there and has an AF of just over 2 – despite the fact he is missing two times! Zoran is very strong here too, sitting in second place and holding 5 2008 WRs to add to his 3 from non-SC. In strong third and fourth positions are Maurice (with two more 2008 WRs on CM and MR 3laps) and Nathan, the rest of the bunch falling well behind these four. However, Karlo Tomazelli is lurking ominously with a handful of shortcut times including the 2008 WRs on FS 3lap and DKJP flap, set just a few days ago. Does this herald an imminent Karlo comeback? The Tomazelli-Tolhuis duel could be back on again. Mentions should go to Greg Ihnatenko, whose recent RRy 3lap WR is obviously the best time of 2008 as well, and George Dimitriou, who holds the WS 3lap 2008 WR with an impressive time of 12"89 (15"51 PAL) that currently sits at 4th in the overall rankings
There's plenty more action where that came from, plus a whole load of stats to keep you occupied. Want to know what your best and worst tracks are? Interested in how much you need to improve each time to bring it up to your average potential? Are you just simply keen to see where you stack up against recently active players? You can find all of this out on the 2008 site – but remember to only enter times you've driven in 2008! I'll be doing more updates later in the year as we get ever closer to finding out who the best player in the world is right now. Will MJ complete his set and take down Luke? Can Lacey or Zoran surge to the top of the rankings? Can you make it onto any of the top 10 lists for the year? There's plenty of time to find out…
Greg Ihnatenko hasn’t been in action for a long time…but he returned in style with a terrific new RRy 3lap SC WR. Greg’s new time of 2’00”01 (PAL) broke the NTSC 1’40 barrier, coming in at 1’39”81 and beating Karlo Tomazelli’s previous time by half a second! Greg’s announcement that he had a new WR got SC number one Vincent Tolhuis worried in case his coveted WS flap WR had been beaten – so he went and beat his own WR the very same night with a stunning 2”35 (PAL), dropping the NTSC time under two seconds to 1”95! This WR is now so fast that it appears to be virtually unbeatable. Greg’s WR did also improve his AF very slightly but he remains in no man’s land in third, ahead of Myles Bukrim but almost 3 AF behind Karlo. Can Greg continue his comeback and close that gap? Will we get to see the sub-2’00 on RRy 3lap?
Not only did he set the fastest WR in kart history, VAJ also hit some great non-SC times to put himself just a single ARR point away from GOD. He hit both the CM and WS flap GODs to leave himself with just FS 3lap to complete the set of 52 GODs and become only the second ever universal GOD after Karlo. Added to his other PRs, VAJ’s AF cut of just over half a point took him past Jamie White and into 12th place. Not far behind him, Zoran Tintor passed Tuomas Dunkel and moved close to Steven Zwartjes in 17th. Around 3 AF points cover the six places between VAJ and Zoran so a battle between these two universal masters looks to be taking shape.
Outside the top 50, budding AAA member Marcos Vinicius Alves cut another point from his AF and moved into 69th. A few places behind him, the remarkable surge of Matthias Rustemeyer continues, the German jumping another 10 places into 76th. Matthias also took himself into a tie for 47th with George Dimitriou on SC with a 5.4 AF cut. Things were very quiet lower down the charts in the first half of July but Christophe Tremblay made up for the lack of activity with a 36 point cut that got him inside the top 200 at 182. Matt Vanderwouw got close to his goal of reaching the top 200, getting himself up to 210 and avoiding getting passed by Markus Hobelsberger, who made a 20 AF cut and reached 217th.
Marcus Merryfield made an almost identical cut to improve his standing to 263rd while Jed Grabman went up 30 places into 275th. By far the best cut of the month came from Frankie Morgan, who slashed almost 87 from his AF to surge up into the top 300 at 291. Alvin van Asselt, until recently MKWii number one, made a return to MK64 with a small cut that moved him up into 323rd. The last mover was Josh Handeland, whose cut of almost 60 brought him up into 474th. He also had a small SC cut of a couple of points to reach 257.
One new player in the first half of July:
Jose Karica – 255th – Master C – 107 SC
And that’s all for this update! Don’t miss next time, when the update will be replaced by a video of me performing a classic 80s track. Just kidding. Probably.
GREG Ihnatenko left the site to come up with HIS new WR. Yep it was Royal Rayceway sc 3lap to strike down for real. He broke the NTSC barriere 1'40'00.
His new WR is 1'39'81* done with Peach. Greg used a different shroomspot so he could save almost half a second on Karlo.
Hislast words are I will go for sub 2'00'00 PAL barriere so we will have to wait for that...
Congratulations Greg Ihnatenko
The #1 SC'er Vincent Tolhuis was in doubt what sub WR Greg made. And so to be sure his own WR on WS flap still would be his he started to play that track..
Just in 5 minutes VAJ came back to bring the news on the MB's. FASTEST WR IN MK64 HISTORY WS sc flap 1"95 (PAL 2"35) with Bowser again. An amazing sub 2"00.
Congratz VAJ
Well I am always happy seeing WR's still are broken now these days. So people please bring me some mooo.. Wahaa
The Player's List has been updated to reflect times up to July 11th.
Onto the update and 2007 Player of the Year Zoran Tintor just keeps on getting better. Zoran cut another point from his AF with some great PRs including top 20 times on the 3laps and flaps of both BC and YV. Although he remains in 19th, Tuomas Dunkel is now just a tiny fraction away and an individual chart gain of 3 places would see Zoran move into 18th. Cooper Lovera has vowed to keep his place in the top 20 and he stuck to that vow, regaining 20th from John Falls Marshall. The worst GOD is safe for now; will he come under attack again before long? No. 31 Finn Berger kept on turtling his way around the Turnpike, moving himself closer to Legend A on the 3lap and increasing the gap between him and Maurice, who did not move in June.
In the SC ranks, Robert Szabo's return to MK64 in June was a successful one, moving up three more places in the last two weeks to reach 29th with some good work on TT and WS. Jed Grabman made a tiny cut down in 110th and is just behind another Alaskan, Daniel Huntsman. Markus Hobelsberger made a terrific improvement with an AF cut of almost 64 to rocket up into 127th. Marcos Vinicius Alves passed several people with a small cut that got him into 184th. Despite only improving his AF by 4.2, Justin Baldwin managed to pass over 20 players in a group just outside the top 100. He's now 213th.
Particular congratulations are in order for Marcos on nonSC, where he became the 75th Legend! Marcos moved up another 4 places in the second half of June to reach 72nd in the rankings and pass Jivago Pacheco da Silva for 4th in Brazil. The top three? World number two Karlo Tomazelli; number three Marcelo Almeida dos Reis; and number seven Andre Hermanny. It's hard work being a Brazilian karter but if Marcos keeps on improving then we might even have four Brazilians in the top ten one day. Matthias Rustemeyer was up another six places to reach 86th and the brink of King A.
New member Christophe Tremblay performed well in his first month, moving up 45 places from his starting position to end June in 220th. Markus made a massive improvement to go with his SC cuts: he slashed over 110 from his AF in June to finish the month in 237th, up 92 places in the last two weeks! Toby Hooper added a small amount to his cuts from the first couple of weeks in June but stayed in 264th. Marcus Merryfield was another new addition doing well in his first month, rising from 313 to 281. Jed cut a lot more on nonSC than he did on SC, slicing almost 20 from his AF to reach 305th.
Sebastian Nockemann made a good cut of nearly 34 to bring himself up to 346th. Justin Baldwin built on his strong start to the month by moving inside the top 500 at 475 and pushing his AF cut over 50. Continuing the theme of new players doing well in June, Sean Ruff moved up 38 places into 563rd.
Two new players for the second half of June:
Kevin O'Leary - 512 - Intermediate A
Stefan Glosby - 541 - Intermediate D
That's all of the action for June. Some great efforts from new players and also impressive improvements from our more experienced karters - but no action right at the top. Will Zoran's pressure force some of our highest-ranked players to pick up their controller? They've been warned...
