Home » Archives » August 2006 » Mark has a what? o_O We should demand photographic evidence from him, he could be pulling our leg.
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| 03 August 2006: "Mark has a what? o_O We should demand photographic evidence from him, he could be pulling our leg." |
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| Movement Is it possible to keep all this short? Hmm, probably not. As you can see from the past champs page, the title was swapped a few times over the week, culminating in a new Champion in #1 Vincent van der Fluit. He and #3 Hendrik battled it out early in the week, both lingering around 4.0 in AF. Vince fired up near the end of the week, scoring 6 PRs in the final two days, and surprised Hendrik with a 1.1 AF cut. He not only got under 4, but finished on 3.6. Hendrik was still keeping quite close, scoring 4 PRs of his own in those last few days, and kept his AF aroud the 4.0 mark. #2 Richard Karlsson was overtaken by both Vince and Hendrik early in the week, but made a very strong 6-PR run in the last days of the month, just like Vince. Richard cut 0.5 off AF, and slipped under 4.0 for AF, passing #3 Hendrik for the silver medal. In terms of AF, Richard was merely a few PRs away from Myth+ when he made just Crazy PR Smashing run to the top recently. His 8 PRs this week easily got him over the line, with a 0.2 cut for an ARR score of 1.37 - Myth+! Hendrik finished the week on 1.51, and Vince on 1.62 (both Myth A). So as it stands between these 3 players, their AFs are 3.6, 3.9, 4.1. Vince won the AF battle, but is third in the ARR chart. Richard reached Myth+, but is barely ahead of Hendrik in AF. So it still seems rather close between them, and I may need to up the past champs page many more times over August  #4 Raphael Segas and #5 Marius Mollenhauer were inactive, and slipped by a little. They still hold a reasonable lead over #6 Aron Langerak, who is about 1.5 AF pts behind them. Aron scored 13 PRs to close off a good month, cutting 0.9 AF pts in the process. He has extended his lead over #7 Tristan Eyma to more than 2 AF pts. #13 Andreas Rudmarker rode on Richard's Swedish success and motivated himself to race 14 new PRs. His 2.3pt AF cut sees him pass #14 Fernando Moritz dos Santos, and he is really close to conquering #12 Rene Bauer now. The other positively active top-25 player was #22 Olivier Lavenant. He had a sizeable gap to fill between himself and #21 Luke Mulders, but this week's 0.9 cut brings him to within 0.5 AF pts of reaching Luke. #60 Michael Duerr scored 7 PRs, and cut down on 4.8 AF pts. Unfortunately, he had a large 4-pt gape to make up between #61 Rickard Lindell and #59 Ivo van der Stap, so most of his improvement was spent in making up ground. The good news is that the next few players should be easy to pass, since he's now so close to them. And even better news is that he became Titan D! #63 Andrew Math and #80 Konsta Jukka must have been chased by hungry dogs, because they both ran a really long way. Andrew reported 26 gaareat new PRs, cutting 19 AF pts and moving up 16 places. He passed a lot of famous veteran karters along the way.His 1.7pt cut in ARR was pretty darn big, giving Hero A. He's quite close to Titan D, though, and should reach it soon. The Finnish champ, Konsta, made a similar burst of 24 PRs to round-off a good month. He actually made half of them on the first weekend of the final week, then went camping for, and then returned and made the other half in the last two days. Overall, he improved his rank by 17 positions, passing a lot of French/Canadian/USA players. Konsta improved all of his scores to Hero D or better, but also scored several Titan times. These helped his ARR improve by one whole point, and he became a Hero B. You've been hearing about some up-and-comers recently, and they're at it again. #162 Marc Schwartz started off the week quite well, with 13 new PRs. Unfortunately, he had to go on a holiday mid-week and so his run was interrupted. He won't be able to play for two weeks, but is it enough time for Rob and Jerrol to pass him? Probably. Rob (#172 Robert Chastain) made a 21pt cut this week, thanks to 22 PRs. He passed 19 players, became Exp C, and should be able to catch Marc by next week. #174 Jerrol is doing okay, too, finally getting ahead of his son #180 Flynn. Flynn is on vacation, so Jerrol is using dirty tactics and playing behind his son's back... expect Flynn to make many scores when he returns! Jerrol's 15 PRs gave him a 12pt AF cut. It was not enough to hold off Rob, so Jerrol was passed by him. But it was enough to get ahead of Dutchies Flynn and #175 Erik Houke. If Jerrol doesn't catch Marc in one week, two weeks should be enough.#182 Rhodri Morgan is another of those guys who makes really big cuts, and this week his 39pt cut stood out as the largest score in the region. He scored 26 PRs, though perhaps some of them were from the week before. He scored his first Exp A time, and made more than half of his PRs be in the top-200. He himself easily broke into the top-200, with plenty of padding due to his large cut. He also reached Exp C overall. #234 Cole Gilbert was another. He just missed out on a triple-digit improvement, netting a 95pt AF cut. His ARR cut skipped past two ranks and threw him straight into Expert D. He's also been moving up about 100 positions per week in AF since joining, but this week it was "only" 86 places Out of his 31 new PRs, PB is his best course, where he's got his best standard (Exp B) and best placing (175th).Super-recent-addition, #342 Kyle Bradley, only joined this week. But he started playing avidly, and has made a 166pt AF cut already. He's still at the stage where wow-I-just-cut-2-seconds-in-a single-race PRs are not uncommon, so it will be interesting to see if he quickly slows down, or makes it last (it's like a rollercoaster... big drop at the start to give you enough momentum to last the whole ride.) #421 Darius Austin is in his 2nd official week on the rankings, and had a nice 81pt cut himself. Can Kyle match an 80pt cut next week? Darius improved all 32 PRs to get such large cuts. His best tracks seems to be Mario Circuit and Bowser's Castle... he's very conservative, playing the traditional hero/villain levels. In ARR, he pulled a Cole and skipped two ranks, finishing the week as an Intermediate A player.Honourable mentions: #224 Gilles Roudeilla (Exp D), #293 Kevin Cook (top-300, Adv B), #320 Richard Turenhout (Adv B), #350 Jeff Kottcamp (Adv C), #484 Slaketo Flake (Int C), #494 Nick Welch (Int C). New Records Quite a lot of records were set to end the month, thanks to Vince, Richard and Hendrik battling to reduce their AFs. Early in the week, Vince scored a 1'07"939 in Peach Beach. Six of the top-10 times were set this week, trying to beat Vince: JSX 1'08'06, Hendrik 1'07'98, Aron 1'08'00, Andreas 1'08'2, and finally Richard 1'07'96. Vince, Richard and Hendrik are all under 1'08, but Vince is the only one who managed to reach the G+3 standard. The lap also received attention. There were many people tied for the WR recently, but it's back into an individual's hands. Aron (21'85), Vince ('81) and JSX ('85) all went for it, yet it was Hendrik's 21"766 that finished on top. Hendrik's lap is G+6! Richard scored 3rd place a few days after. Baby Park... relatively quiet level, with most of the top-dogs avoiding it. Aron Langerak was unimpeded in improving the record to 1'04"306. It's 0.03 faster than 2nd place (Cedric Willo). Mushroom Bridge is next. Vince's 1'18"746, set in the middle of the week, was also beaten by Richard's 1'18"76 several day's later. But Vince's time held on, and leads 2nd place by 0.02. Both scores are G+3, while 3rd place Xavier Valentin's 1'18'91 is G+1. Last week, Mario Circuit ended up Hendrik-Vince-Richard. This week, Vince didn't play, but Hendrik and Richard did. Hendrik improved his old record to 1'27"70, but Richard's 1'27"664 two days' later won. Both those times reached God, while Vince stays on M+. In the lap, it was Hendrik who set the pace again, with a 27"919. Richard tried to take that record, too, but managed a 27"93 instead. He gets 2nd place, leaving last week's record holder (Aron) in 3rd and Vince in 4th. Vince spent his time in Daisy Cruiser instead of Mario Circuit. A 1'37"591 there sees him narrowly pass Richard's 1-month-old record by just 0.01, and Richard is only 0.01 ahead of Paul Maes. So the top-3 spot, all of which are M+ times, are very close. In fact, the next 4 scores are still within 0.05 of Paul. Vince raced his time at the very end of the month, so if it causes some of the other top players to think "hmm, I can beat that", we might get their contributions in the new month. Sherbet Land... Raphael's 1'14"5 from 11 months ago is still 2nd place, but Vince and Marius have also ignored this course for a year. Hendrik has avioded it for months, which gave Richard a good shot at improving the WR. His 1'14"534 is the only Myth+ score now, and is 0.06 ahead of Raphael. Richard complained that his first lap was worse than he would have liked, so he might keep playing for God. Almost done... just two more WRs, and both in Yoshi Circuit by Henrik Bunde. Jonathan Steel has been pushed down to 4th, with Vince scoring 1'40"99. Richard (1'40'97) and Hendrik (1'40"927) were quicker than that, all three of them scoring Myth+ times. Vince raced a 32'44 to go with his 3lap time, but that was only good enough for 2nd place - Hendrik improved the record to 32"403. New Players Welcome to... Kyle Bradley, USA (342nd, Adv C) Gregory d'Eon, Canada (468th, Int C) Wesley Kok, Netherlands (430th, Int B) Antoine Veylon, France (546th, Int D) |