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| 31 August 2008: "In their own country ;)" |
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| Godfather of SMK speaks of the Super Mario Kart European Championship Just when karters thought that there would be no update today, your Godfather of SMK keeps his promise and busts one out after getting home... I won't go into great detail now but I will say that the CDE Tournament was fantastic, perhaps a bit of a lack of sleep for all of us, but all in all we really enjoyed. Fantastic efforts from Guillaume Leviach + Claire, also Cedric Leutwyler and everyone else who contibuted to make the meeting a great one. Although Credits go to Florent for once again taking the title, this year as Champion of Europe 2008, there was an amazing performance from Drew Blumfield who managed to arrive in France after a long trip from California; single-handedly representing the whole of USA and reaching 2nd place despite the fact that the SMK was played on the PAL system!! Definitely setting a benchmark and hopefully inspiring more karters from the US and other countries far away to attend a future meeting and take part in the competition. Geoffrey Label maintained his 3rd place from the previous year, and I was honoured to reach 4th, earning myself a Wii as a prize (compliments from Nintendo of France, with many thanks to them). The full results will be up on the Championnat website and French Forum soon, so check it out there, including photos which I am sure will be uploaded soon. I also took the opportunity to celebrate 10 years of the SMK site during this meeting by organising some challenges on a few other favourite games regularly played by karters at the meets. Medals and cash prizes were given out to the Top 3 in each, results will also be posted on the forum in due course. I am pleased also to report that we will have 3 new members joining during the next week that I was able to recruit during the time at the CDE. I hope that the CDE will encourage more karters to attend the meeting in future years so we can make it even bigger and better every time  New Members No new members this week... New World Records No new World Records this week... Movement PAL Activity: #8 Angelo Di Vano, the Champion of Italy chops a few more records down on his times and cuts some more average finish, heading towards the 10.000 average finish score and extending the lead on rivals during the course of the CDE. #12 Guillaume Leviach drove a new KB2 PR during the CDE which was very nice, and he improves his overall level a little. He also showed me on a tv a few other "PRs", though I was unable to include them for technical reasons  Just like to say, once again, a great CDE man, many thanks from Team UK and keep up the great work and karting!#35 Gene Tagliabue, the Champion of Australia is continuing the pressure, also taking advantage of the quieter PAL week due to the CDE and is making awesome progress including passing the legendary Archibald Lefevre. #51 John Kenny is more of a non-updated PR as pointed out by Gene for GV2 fastlap that increases his level a little. #109 Steve Bayliss of the UK is hitting his PAL PRs hard, succeeding into the Top 110 of the World on PAL. #111 Samuel Gomez also made a PR during the CDE, a small cut for GV3. #241 Lindsay Molenaar put in some last training PRs with Bowser before the CDE started this week, good efforts and a further cut to her overall stats. NTSC Activity: #11 Oliver Segarra Gonzalez of Brazil is finally back to SMK!! It has been a long time, and his team have looked forward to a comeback. We surely hope he will be active for a while as his progress so far has been great, chopping away at several times and making a margin on average finish. We look forward to more PRs from Oliver soon. #21 Simon Laflamme of Canada is making a celebrity guest appearance this week with some strong Non-NBT PRs for GV1 and DP2. #33 Akita Sounori of Japan returns for this months time submissions and has worked again on several records, climbing to #6 in Japan with his efforts. He will improve further soon and we look forward to see his new PRs. #35 Alvin van Asselt of Netherlands kept himself busy on the NTSC side with a few PRs, some NBT and some Non-NBT to climb another rank on the site. #87 Matt Ellis of Canada has also returned to SMK this week with a pair of MC1 times with solid achievements there so far; a sub 59 is just ahead. #183 Adam Leibach of USA has been strong this week again in his ranks, gaining positions over his rivals as he smashes his times. |