Home » Archives » August 2006 » Heated battle at the top, but all interests lie with Gaffikin's election promises.
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| 15 August 2006: "Heated battle at the top, but all interests lie with Gaffikin's election promises." |
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| Movement It was very active at the top this week. #1 Richard Karlsson raced 8 PRs this week, and improved his AF by 0.3 to 3.18. His ARR dropped to 1.03, very close to falling under 1 (but still far from God). #2 Hendrik Bunde ran 7 PRs, and passed Vince by improving his AF to 3.8. In ARR, Hendrik dropped 0.2 pts and gained some ground on Richard. The one who suffered at the top was #3 Vincent van der Fluit, whose inactivity saw him lose almost 0.5 pts, falling back to 3rd place with an AF of 4.2. #4 Marius Mollenhauer impressed, armed with 9 PRs and a large 0.7 AF cut. He didn't pass anyone this week, but he is now 0.3 behind Vince. His 0.5pt surge in ARR however, reduced his ARR score to 1.19, slightly ahead of Hendrik. It is the 2nd best ARR score, and makes Marius the third Myth+ player! #5 Raphael Segas is warming up for a comeback, having not submitted any PRs in 4 months. His only raced two PRs, on Daisy Cruiser. One of them was a WR (nice comeback!), but was beaten later in the week. In any case, Raphael improved his AF by 0.2 (to 5.8) and his ARR a little. If Vince continues to be inactive, Raphael might reach Myth+ before him! Or maybe it will be Aron, the Dutchman who has promised to pass Vince for the #1 Crazy Dutch medal. Aron has been steadily improving over many weeks now, and made another "small" improvement this week. With his 11 PRs, he cut 0.5 in AF for a score of 6.6. You don't hear about Aron much in the news because he keeps playing the "hot" courses (the ones where someone _else_ gets the WR), and because he can't pass many people - he's already 3.5 AF pts ahead of the person after him, and all the guys before him are super-awesome and hard to catch. But Aron is now less than 1 AF pt from Raphael, so he's made up most of the ground. In ARR, his 0.2 cut makes him be the 6th player with an ARR score of under 2. #10 Andreas Rudmarker made 13 PRs, for a nice 2.8pt AF cut. It takes him past #11 Olivier Peruch and #12 David Schiering. He easily made Myth B with his 0.5 ARR cut. The top 3 USA players were active. #16 Bo Garman reported 10 new PRs, passed #17 Paul Tanney, and is very close to getting revenge on #15 Jean-Christophe Lacastaignerate for overtaking him last week. He is currently 0.09 AF pts from catching J-C. His geographically-proximate friend, #22 Jake Sopcak, only produced half as many PRs (7), but made twice as big a cut (2.3 AF pts). Jake managed to pull ahead of #23 Olivier Lavenant to become the 4th-ranked 60Hz player. And very conveniently, Jake became Myth D, beating the cut-off by 1 standard. #26 Alejandro Hernandez is probably gunning for Jake's neck, having already dispatched with #27 Gregor Fran (by, you know, 1 position). If Alejandro gets past #25 Kristopher Will, he will be the 6th 60Hz player, and can then take on Olivier and Jake. #32 Marijn Jongbloed is slowly catching up to Dutchie (and ex-champ) #30 Stefan van Dijke. His 6-PR week was enough to pass #33 Jean Lecureux. Marijn also became Titan A this week. #53 Michael Duerr did a bit better than last week, passing 4 players this time. He is fast approaching the top-50, and could do it by next week. While #78 Jonas is still getting his groove back and made 5 PRs, #68 Konsta Jukka has decided to pass him (and 9 other players) and charge towards the top-50, himself. With 14 PRs, a 8.7pt AF cut and 0.8pt ARR cut (making Hero A), if you were between #50 and Konsta and I were you, I'd probably prepare to get passed. #75 Marvin Mester was one of the people passed by Konsta, but he isn't doing too badly. With a 4.5pt AF cut, he passed two French players, and also made Hero A. #97 Piet den Dulk "took on" his perennial rival Arnaud this week, and passed him. In their rivalry, Piet now leads in all the stats, except lap totals. Speaking of that rivalry, Christophe has been absent for a month, but he submitted 2 PRs today, so he might be planning to "take on" Arnaud and Piet again. #130 Joey Michorius had also been gone for some time, but he's now getting back into some action, scoring 12 PRs in the past seen days. He passed 5 players with his 6.7pt AF cut, and there might be more where that came from. On a similar tack, #150 Shane Vreeland, who had also been gone a month, raced 11 PRs and also cut 6.7pts in AF, passing 7 players. If we ignore Konsta Jukka (who is probably secretly a Crazy Dutch, not Finnish) and #151 Oskar Joutsijoki (sounds kinda Japanese), we have conclusive proof this week that Norway > Finland. #158 Snorre Hakonsen, the top Norwegian, came back after 5 months absense and regained one of his lost Norse Records. In the process, he passed #161 Arto Jarvela (definately a real player from Finland), by one position! It was all in a week's work for Scott Abbey, who emulated his last week's PR and improved another 35 positions, thanks to a 27pt AF cut. He (obviously) broke into the top-200 with this. He also reached Exp C in ARR. There were big cuts from several players outside the top-250. #256 Sylviain Artigue only just joined, but improved by almost 200 places in his first week. In ARR, he submitted a full timesheet, and debuts at Exp D. #258 Kevin Sirman sent in his first submission in 2 months, jumping up nearly 60 places and reaching Adv A (only a couple of standards short of Exp D). #277 Kyle Bradley cut another 41 pts in AF to complete his 2nd week on the charts, and is quickly catching up to veteran #273 Kevin Cook. Kevin himself raced 21 PRs, to pass 24 players and stay a few places ahead of Kyle. Both Kevin and Kyle reached Adv A. Honourable mentions: #165 Alex Hanston (Exp B), #170 Jerrol Hoppenbrouwers (Exp B), #220 Omar Al-Azhar (Exp C), #295 Richard Turenhout (top 300), #376 Mark Engelsman (Adv D). New Records There were 4 WRs this week. The first was by Richard Karlsson, on the first day of the week. His 8"538 lap in Baby Park is the first God+10 lap in the game, achieving the full -1 pt ARR bonus. Raphael Segas and Hendrik Bunde each lose a WR, since they are now tied in 2nd spot at 8"544 (G+9). Richard ran another WR later in the week, in Daisy Cruiser. Raphael Segas had a comeback with a 1'38'4 WR on DC, and it took Richard a few days to beat it. His 1'37"154, 0.3 faster, also achieves G+1. The other two records were both by Hendrik Bunde, both in Bowser's Castle - 2'18"202 and 45"002. Hendrik battle Richard for the course time, and his new record was set on the same day as Richard reported a 2'18"36. That puts Hendrik at 0.16 ahead of second place, but both times were God. On the lap, Hendrik instead fended off Marius Mollenhauer, getting 0"08 faster than Marius (45"080). Richard managed 4th place with 45"192. In 60Hz, Marius scored another couple. As mentioned above, BC 45"080 was one of them. It's a G+1 time, and 0"36 faster than the next best 60Hz time (by Paul Regeffe). Of course, that wasn't all for the 60Hz champ... In Dry Dry Desert, a 1'30"410 reached G+2, and is 2nd place overall behind Paul Maes. It is a whole 1.2 seconds ahead of Olivier Peruch. Again leading Olivier by a large margin, Marius's 28"076 GD lap on the desert was 0"26 faster than his French rival. It also was 2nd place overall, behind Maes. Mario Circuit 1'27"769 narrowly missed out on the overall WR by 0"1, but Marius still reached the GD standard, and 3rd place overall. The lap was even closer, with Marius's 27"929 missing Hendrik's 27"919 overall record by 10 times less than the course time. Jake Sopcak and Bo Garman caught Olivier here, making three 60Hz players trail Marius by 1/6th of a second. Last but not least, Marius beat both his old Wario Colosseum times. A 1'58"391 effort saw him pass Andreas Rudmarker for 3rd place overall, narrowly missing Tristan Eyma. Marius is 1.9 seconds ahead of the next strongest 60Hz player on this track, Olivier Lavenant. A 58"406 on the lap leads Bo Garman by a second, and is 4th overall. Both of Marius's times were Myth+. New Players Welcome to... Markus Muller, Germany (554th, Beg A) Robin Rottmann, Germany (575th, Beg B) Terrence Fenner, USA (428th, Int B) Sylvain Artigue, France (256th, Exp D) |