Mario Kart: Double Dash!! Players' Page

In the end, He produced the holy image and the sacred scribbled text. And it was good, and the people rejoiced (well, most of 'em).

Alex @ Tuesday, August 22nd [link]

Away
I'll be away for a while. I'll do the news this week, but Vince will take over and keep you updated after that. I probably won't be on the Internet much for a few weeks. That also means that if you want POW/POM, you should (only temporarily!) redirect your steady supply of youknowwhat to Vince.

Movement

No change in Richard holding onto the championship belt. He even almost reduced his AF to under 3 pts, and he reduced his ARR to below 1.0! #2 Hendrik made 4 PRs, cutting his AF by 0.3. It wasn't enough to reach Richard, but it puts him within striking distance. #3 Vince remained quiet, while #3 Marius Mollenhauer raced 2 PRs to tie Vincent on AF score. So both are ranked #3 on the chart!

#9 Andreas Rudmarker passed #10 Paul Maes to move inside the top 10. It was an 8-PR performance that got him there. Good news for Andreas is that #7 Tristan Eyma and #8 Jonathan Steel are not far ahead of him, and he might not only a couple of PRs to pass them.

#20 Jake Sopcak ran 4 PRs, two of which were God times. His 0.8 cut in AF slides him ahead of #21 Yannick Plebani and #22 Luke Mulders, to be sitting on the edge of the top-20. There are currently 3 players separating Jake and his friend and country rival #16 Bo Garman. If Jake can pass #18 Cedric Willo and #19 Xavier Valentin (they are very close to him), he will have #17 Paul Tanney to contend with. After that, he can challenge Bo for the USA title.

#31 Marijn Jongbloed, the 10th-ranked 60Hz player, passed #32 Stephen Meakings. This puts him 1 position and 0.4 AF pts behind fellow Dutchie and ex-champ #30 Stefan van Dijke.

Though his PRs were few in number, Germany's Michael Duerr broke into the top-50 this week, stopping at #47. He cut 2 pts in AF and reached Titan C. The AF cut helped him pass Francois Chu, Julien Boisiaud, me, Yohan and Yoann (but he was already ahead of Yohann... confused yet?). The nearest Germans are 10 more positions ahead, so Michael may need to focus on #46 Benoit and #45 Alejandro Laflamme for now.

#63 Konsta Jukka.... well, you probably know the deal. Another big cut. The Finnish champ reported 15 PRs for the week, for an 8 pt AF cut. He passed 5 players with this - Arnaud Teil, Rickard Lindell, Ben Zeller, Dan Sloggett and John Anderson. The next few places above him a more tightly-packed, so another 8-pt cut would move him much further than 5 positions. He also became Titan D, but maybe he won't stick around there for too long smile

#59 Andre Overesch and #60 Andrew Math may have overheard the sounds of destruction at their backs, and are doing the math to figure out what needs to be done for them to reach the top-50 first. They both raced 6 PRs, and both cut off a bit under 3 AF pts. This gets them both ahead of #61 Stacy Needham and #62 Ivo van der Stap. To get to the top-50, they need to cut off 8 more pts in AF. That requirement will likely increase to 9 if Konsta passes them first.

#104 Christophe Cosentino submitted a handful of PRs, following a month absence. He's gaining some ground in his rivalry against #96 Piet and #98 Arnaud. Piet moved passed #97 Michael Fried this week, putting a player between him and Arnaud. Piet also became Hero C (Arnaud is 2 standards away). Christophe is not yet into the double-digits ranks with them, but if he can repeat this week cut next week, he will be.

#115 Marcel Felix has been busy with unimportant (i.e. non-kart) things for the past 10 months, but decided to play once again. He reported 16 new PRs, and seems to be making new ones each day. He was around 100th when he stopped, so he has fallen behind a bit. But he quickly made up some of the lost ground already. As for reaching new heights, he became Hero D!

#120 Marc Schwartz continues to rise at a fast pace, slicing off around 22 AF pts this week. He passed several Dutchies along the way, including #126 Michael Jongerius and #129 Joey "little MJ" Michorius. Marc recently met up with MJ and some other Dutchies to played some kart, so maybe he's learnt a few moves from Super-Dutchie Vincent van der Fluit, and is putting them to good use.

While Marc Schwartz left the neighbourhood, #152 Robert Chastain still has #154 Jerrol Hoppenbrouwers to compete with. Rob's been playing regularly, though his pace slowed down the past few weeks. This week he made 19 PRs, for a cool 13 pt AF cut. It moved him up 12 places. Meanwhile, Jerrol has made one his better cuts in weeks, scoring 18 PRs for 19 AF pts. Now Rob and Jerrol are neck-and-neck. #178 Flynn Hoppenbrouwers is also active, passing 3 players.

#232 Kevin Cook has powered into the top 50, leave #247 Kyle Bradley to play catch-up. Both were close last week, but Kevin's 43 pt cut was larger than Kyle's 32pt. Kev's 22 PRs were mostly Expert, and his overall ARR also reached Expert D. Nearly half of Kyle's 23 PRs were Advanced... but he reached Expert D, too.

#256 Sami Cetin, not as well-known for MKDD as for SMK and MK64, practiced some MKDD because he may need to compete in it for a games meet. He reported some old PRs, and maybe some new ones (he didn't label them). In any case, his big list of PRs gave him a 43pt cut, moving him up about 40 places. He's lost a lot of ground in the ladder since he last played... which was around December 2003. At least he can be the new holder of the "longest time between submissions" record. It's a hard record to beat, since it requires years of patience smile

Curiously, Sami's PRs were precisely what was required to make him Expert D.

Last but not least, #332 Darius Austin is doing some kind of diary on the MB. He sent in 32 new PRs! They amounted to a 50 pt AF cut, which moves him up about 40 places. He also became Adv C.

Honourable mentions: #142 Shane Vreeland (top-150, Exp A), #280 Richard Turenhout (Adv A).

New Records

Looks like there were four WRs this week.
Richard Karlsson and Hendrik Bunde were rivals for the Baby Park lap WR this week. Richard set a God+10 last time, causing Hendrik to lose his tied record with Raphael. They both played it this week, for the prestige rather than the stat cuts. In the end, Richard improved his record to 8"524, but Hendrik went 1/100th of a second better with 8"514. Both are G+10, of course.
In the 7lap, Hendrik gave the WR chase, producing a 1'04"30. It missed out on Aron Langerak's record by a couple of thousandths of a sec. However, Aron decided to improve his own time to 1'04"234 anyway, keeping a comfortable 0'07 lead. Both of those scores were G+3.

Hendrik scored another lap record - a 31"509 Daisy Cruiser that ties Olivier Peruch's record from April.

And although Richard lost a record on BP, he made up for it on PB - a 1'07"774 G+4 course time leads 2nd-placed Vince by 0.16 sec.

There were also two 60Hz WRs, both by Marius Mollenhauer.
He joined the Baby Park rivalry, and raced a 8"550 - 4th overall, and G+7. Jake Sopcak made a 8"565 there, almost piping Marius for the record.

The other was in a more-quiet course - Mushroom Bridge. A 1'18"861 makes G+2, and 3rd place overall. Marius missed out on Vince's overall WR by 0.12, but has a lead over the next best 60Hz score (Olivier Peruch's) of 0.11 sec.

New Players

Welcome to...

Daniel Ernsberger, USA (279th, Adv A)
Kevin Booth, USA (~650, Beg C)
Alencar Faria, Brazil (394th, Adv D)

So who's taking bets on Kevin? How long before he reaches USA Top-5? Maybe by POQ's end (5 weeks)? He's got pedigree, so who knows...

Heated battle at the top, but all interests lie with Gaffikin's election promises.

Alex @ Tuesday, August 15th [link]

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)

It's Miller Time... of the MyleStyle variety?

Alex @ Tuesday, August 8th [link]

Movement

There's been a lot of updates to the past champs recently. This week, Richard Karlsson is once again in #1 spot, after overtaking #2 Vincent van der Fluit. Vince was fairly quiet this week, scoring two LC PRs a few days ago. His AF worsened by 0.15, but it's still very competitive. Richard scored 6 PRs, and managed to slice 0.5 away from his AF, reaching 3.47. This is 0.3 better than Vince (3.75), and enough to make him first place. Hendrik scored 5 PRs of his own, all of them WRs. His AF remained roughly the same (4.0), but he was probably going for ARR cuts instead. In ARR, Richard leads the ladder at 1.18 (Myth+) after a great cut this week from all of his PRs. Vince's 2 PRs bring him to within 0.06 of reaching Myth+, while Hendrik jumped the hurdle and became the second Myth+ player, with an ARR of 1.40.

#4 Marius Moritz Mollenhauer had a nice 7-PR week, improving his AF by 0.8pts. It is 1.2 worse than Hendrik's, the next player up, but Marius reached 4th place by overtaking #5 Raphael Segas. He took several 60Hz records away from Olivier Lavenant and Olivier Peruch, raising his 60Hz WR tally to 28. In ARR, he cut 1/4 of a rank, and is getting closer to Myth+.

#12 Andreas Rudmarker raced one PR, and it was enough to overtake #13 Rene Bauer in the rankings smile

On the other hand, #15 Jean-Christophe Lacastaignerate, who is 3 places behind Andreas now, made a comeback of 12 PRs. Six of his times were God (PB, BP, MB), while his PRs on the non-SMT-benefitting tracks were around Titan. Nevertheless, the an overall improvement of 3.3 AF pts saw JSX pass #17 Bo Garman and #16 Paul Tanney. He also easily made Myth C, thanks to all those ARR cuts.

#24 Jake Sopcak has sent in 4 new PRs after 2 months away. Good enough to pass #25 Kristopher Will. Similarly, #26 Alejandro Hernandez raced one PR after many weeks away, but it helped him get the better of #27 Gregor Fran. Currently, Kris Will is the player separating Jake and Alejandro. Not too far behind these guys is #33 Marijn Jongbloed, who probably wants to make his way into a more-active region of the ladder. Marijn's 3.6pt AF cut, which moves him up past 4 players, puts him within 10 AF pts of Alejandro.

#57 Michael Duerr continued where he left off last week, and even though his cut was smaller this time, he passed more players. He moves up 3 positions. He leaves behind a bit of action near the #60 position. #61 Andre Overesch scored a big 5.4pt cut from just 5 PRs, getting past four players (including fellow German #65 Ben Zeller). #62 Andrew Math and #63 Arnaud Teil are active and close behind him. Andre, Andrew and Arnaud all became Titan D this week, making a total of 63 Titans.

#77 Jonas Natanaelsson was planning a comeback, after 3 months way. He started warming up at the end of the week, and sent 7 PRs on the final day. He's lost a bit of ground through inactivity, but should be able to end up better than before if he plays a bit. For now, he made up 2.7 AF pts and passed #79 Rob van Zanten and #80 Simon Laflamme. Finnish hero #78 Konsta Jukka may be unphased by Jonas's return, and continues at his merry pace. A 4.2 AF cut this week helped Konsta pass those same two players.

#177 Alex Hanston joined around 2 months ago, but his first big submission was this week. It had 28 new PRs on it, giving the Swiss player a 31pt AF cut. Alex breaks into the top-200 with that, and earns Expert C.

#227 Scott Abbey had a quiet one last week, scoring only a handful of PRs. This week he's redeemed himself, reaching Expert D and getting 23 PRs. His 37pt AF cut moved him up just over 30 places.

In their first weeks here, #300 Anton Veylon and #315 Kyle Bradley both made a good start, scoring about 20 PRs each. Anton has submitted a full timesheet, so he's now officially ranked in the AF ladder. Needless to say, his ARR improved immensely (6 ranks), because of all those auto-Newbie times. Kyle easily made it to Advanced B. Let's see how long they keep it up.

Honourable mentions: #98 Piet den Dulk (double-digits again), #368 Darius Austin (Adv D), #429 Mark Engelsman (Int A), #490 Dave Smith (Int C).

New Records

As mentioned, Hendrik Bunde improved a bunch of WRs this week, and Richard Karlsson scored a pair.

Luigi Circuit was a popular track, with several top players making PRs. Aron Langerak and Vince both ran high 24'4x laps, while Richard made a low 24'4x. They didn't managed to thwart Hendrik, whose 24"386 G+2 lap is 0.05 ahead of second place (Richard). Richard (and Raphael) are G+1, while Vince's and Aron's were God.
In the course time, Aron ran a God time, but was 0.17 slower than Vince's new time. Vince and Richard ran G+2 scores of 1'15'20 and 1'15'17, but Hendrik once again came out on top, with a 1'15"113. It is 0.01 faster than Raphael's race from 4 months ago (both are G+3).

Mushroom City was Richard's triumph, beating the course record with a 1'34"828, which is G+5 and 0.08 ahead of Vince's 1'34'90 G+4 from May. Aron came up 0'25 short of the new record at the end of the week. Not as much action in the lap, where only Richard seemed to make a move in the top-most ranks. Along with Vince and Cedric Willo, Richard's 31"033 is a G+5 score, but it's 0'01 faster than them.

Back to Hendrik - he improved both his Yoshi Circuit records from last week, even though nobody was threatening him there this week. A 1'40"891 is still Myth+, but 0.03 faster than last week. The complementing 32"383 lap time was just 0'02 faster than before, but enough to raise the bar to G+1 instead of G.

Hendrik's final record was in Bowser's Castle, a 45"142. It beats Aron Langerak's 45"15 record from 5 weeks ago by 0"01. Both times, as well as Marius Mollenhauer's 45"19 from this week are GD.

In 60Hz, there were also some new records. As mentioned above, Marius Mollenhauer played Bowser's Castle, scoring a 45"194 God lap. It's 3rd overall, and leads the next best 60Hz time (Paul Regeffe) by 0"25. The 3lap fell along with the lap, to 2'18"694. It's only 0"03 ahead of Regeffe, but also only 0"12 behind Karlsson's overall record.

Richard played Sherbet Land recently, and Marius decided to give it a shot. A 1'14"644 was 0"11 short of the WR, but it brings Marius into 3rd place, just ahead of Vince. The next best 60Hz time is Olivier Peruch, 0"25 behind.

Mushroom Bridge and a 25"799 G+2 sees Marius lead Olivier Peruch by "08. Overall, it ties Xavier Valentin for 3rd spot. The other course where the SMTs have proved useful is Baby Park. Oliver and Marius have swapped the 3lap record a few times between themselves, and once again Marius was able to respond. His 1'04"566 leads Olivier's 1'04"78 from two weeks ago by 0"22.

Finally, the other other course where SMTs have also proven useful is Peach Beach. Marius claimed both records here - 21"838 (G+4) and 1'08"100 (G+1) - leaving Olivier with no Mushroom Cup 60Hz records. The lap is 0"05 faster and the 3lap is "08 faster.

New Players

Welcome to...

Stewart Marshall, New Zealand (516th, Int D)
Guido Triebe, Germany (519th, Int D)
Keen van der Heide, Belgium (133rd, Exp A)

Mark has a what? o_O We should demand photographic evidence from him, he could be pulling our leg.

Alex @ Thursday, August 3rd [link]

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 smile

#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! smile

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 smile

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? smile

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)