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| 09 May 2006: "EEE? Is anyone here.... there?" |
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| Just a small word of caution: apparently YahooGroups has a temporary problem where some messages don't go through. The MKDS crew has experienced this, and I think MKDD might have similar issues. It's not our fault. Movement #3 Vincent van der Fluit scored a bunch of WRs to cut 0.4pts, and has a 0.6 lead over #4 Richard Karlsson. He is currently 1.06 pts behind Hendrik Bunde. Not far behind, #6 Paul Maes is slowly catching up to #5, cutting 0.3 this week to bring his AF to within 0.5pts of Jonathan Steel. Another few good PRs might do it (his PRs lately have been Gods or low Myths, yet Paul still has a few high-Titan times that he could benefit from improving). We received 6 PRs from Tristam Eyma, the POY-candidate who has been missing for 6 months. Among his PRs were a God and G+1 score on BP lap and PB lap, and all 6 times were in the first three courses - it seems Tristan is trying to improve course by course! (Hmm, where have we seen this recently??) These 6 scores are fresh-in from the 2nd last submission to get through, so for all we know, Tristan is karting right now  His PRs were enough for a 4.2pt AF cut, which passed about 8 players (they're all pretty tight in that region)! More good news for Tristan - Myth D! He had just enough to reach it.Tristan made a good move to pull ahead, since there is a close battle where he used to be, between #=16 Xavier Valentin, #18 Aron Langerak and #19 Nathan Cromwell. All three of these players had almost exactly the same scores last week. This week, Nathan improved 4.0 AF (16 PRs) and two places. Aron improved by 0.3pts more than Nathan (20 PRs), and is 0.25 ahead of him. Xavier improved by 0.2 more than Aron (12 PRs), and is 0.3 ahead of him. Meanwhile, all three of these guys are quite close to passing #=16 Bo Garman and #15 Cedric Willo. Everyone's favourite Chicago player #33 Jake Sopcak has reported 6 PRs after a month's absence. Good enough for a 1.5pt cut and good enough to make up a couple of positions and get into the news. He's 2 AF pts away from becoming 10th in 60Hz, which is currently held by #32 Kyle Clayton (one position ahead of him). Jake also scored a couple of USA records along the way. Speaking of USA records, tough break for #67 Alan DeLoriea. The American scored a God time for the US on Baby Park lap (8'597) only to have it beat by US champ Bo Garman the same day, with a 8'596... 0.001! Ah well, cookies crumble. Both players are 0.05 ahead of the next-placed US player, Gregor Fran. Fortunately I have some good news for Alan - his 3.7pt AF cut allows him to pass 3 players. And he's stepping on the heels of two US players (#65 David Lalo and #66 Jeff Gutierrez) and can pass them with only a couple of PRs. He also became Hero A. POW #70 Stacy Needham continues from last week's great week with a pretty good week this time. The 10pt AF cut helps him to another 9 positions on the ladder. Highlights include a Titan B score on BP lap, which is top-40. #84 Arnaud Guepey has reported some scores after 1.5 months away. His times include Expert A and Titan A times, so they're a little bit uneven. The 11 PRs amount to a 6.6pt AF cut, and 7 positions. Close behind is #92 Andre Overesch, who pretty much joined last week (though he's obviously had some practice behind closed doors) at 106. So his 8.5pt AF cut in his first official week as part of the community saw him cross over into the top-100. Not bad. He reached Hero C in ARR, too. Andre's movement drops Florian Chollet back to 99th place, while Arnaud Palierne, who cut 2.2pts this week and was about to enter double-digits, is sitting on 100th. #164 Erik Houke emulated his 29pt cut from last week with a 28pt cut this week. That's another ~25 positions improvement for him. Unfortunately for Erik, there don't seem to be too many active players surrounding him, so he'll have to play without any nearby rivals for a little while. Meanwhile, #189 Derrick Koehler has safely broken into the top-200, having been exactly 200th last week. This also places him ahead of his son, #195 Michael Stokes ;D #194 Joey Michorius was another addition to the top 200. "Jongerius Jr" amassed 23 PRs over the week, which resulted in a 26pt cut. It makes Joey pass a couple of Dutchies (awesomely-named #210 Enzio Fruijtier and #198 Niels Duijvesteijn). There are more of them coming, in the forms of #192 Jamie Tio, #177 Arno Bats and #170 Menno Kos (remember them?). Yet another player who passed the top-200 barrier was #197 Andrew Math. He was already close, so he needed just a little nudge. #241 Robert Szabo is slowing down quite a bit, halving his previous week's cut to 21 AF pts this week. Good enough for 19 places. But some of us here at Update HQ think he's just toying with you, and pretending to be weak. You'll see... very soon... explosions! And Dutch virii and stuff. Seems like Robert's times are quite evened out Exp C-Adv B, only 3 ranks apart. Maybe he should try to stick to just one track for a while, instead of spreading himself out. Y'know, get the feel and notice all the finer points of the MT in just one track. Then he might have new skills to apply to the other tracks. As you'd expect, the new players are tearing up the tracks. #341 Adam Peifer is in his first week here, and moved up 50 positions with a 40pt cut. #373 Rhodi Morgan made his first proper/non-initiation submission, scoring 28 PRs for a 57pts and 50 positions cut. #460 Jeff Kottcamp had a massive 63pt cut (31 PRs) for 58 places. Some of these players had equally ridiculous cuts in ARR, but their ranks will probably change by next week  Honourable mentions: #56 Ivo van der Stap (newest Titan!). New Records Rampaging Vincent van der Fluit took his total WR tally to 7 this week. After last week's great WR by Olivier Peruch on Mushroom Bridge (sub 1'19 in 60Hz), Vincent has edged it by 0.13 seconds for a G+2 time of 1'18"845. Vince and Olivier are still the only two with sub-19's, though Paul Maes sneaked into 3rd place with a 1'19'09 earlier in the week. You may remember Vince beatin Cedric Willo's MB lap by 0.001 and Cedric beating him back by another tiny margin. This week, Vince added a the lap WR of 25"819 to his above course WR. This is also a G+2 time, and is 0.02 faster than Cedric (much larger difference than before!). Vince really likes Mushrooms, so he also played Mushroom City. Another heated battle here between him and Willo. Vince's new course WR of 1'34"906 is the first sub-1'35 and a G+4. Cedric time from about 2 weeks ago was a 1'35"01, barely missing out. Aron Langerak scored a 1'35"59 here yesterday - not quite enough to scare Vince, but still top-5. Vince really really likes Mushrooms, so he also played the Mush City lap. 31"045 on it, which is 0.004 faster than Cedric. Both these players are 0.17 faster than anyone else, so these top two times must be really insane. They are both G+5. But that's not all. Vince also likes Marios, not just Mushrooms. His new WR of 1'28"155 in Mario Circuit is 0.06 faster than Raphael Segas's Myth B time from 360 days ago. There has been some activity on MB in the past month, with 4 of the top 5 times being updated within the previous 30 days. Maybe Vince's WR will incite some more heated activity on this course. Last of the overall WRs was a 1'37"614 in Daisy Cruiser, by Paul Maes. It's the first Myth+ time here, leading Hendrik Bunde's MythA time by 0.04. In 60Hz, Olivier Peruch improved a record he already had - Yoshi Circiut 1'41"520. It's top-5 overall still, and narrowly misses out on beating Raphael Segas. Olivier's time is one position and 0.09 faster than the next best 60Hz time, by Marius Mollenhauer. Olivier's 60Hz WR total is still 16, over Marius' 14. New Players None this week, it seems. |