Greetings,

Some of you may remember me.  I was a longtime poster on this message board from around 2008 through about 2013.  My kart career was mainly spent toiling away in the mine field of mkwii and some dabbling in mk64.  As someone who was beloved by this community and presumably greatly missed, I have decided to return for a one time only occasion before deleting my account again and returning to the shadows.  I have created this thread as a service to the community.  The idea came to me while reading this subsection and seeing so many self centered nerds posting AMA (Ask Me Anything) campaigns.  Why anyone would want to spend time answering softball questions about themselves is beyond my understanding and led me to the concept of flipping an AMA on it's head...

So here it is.  Introducing the ATA - Ask Them Anything thread.  This is very simple.  Have you always had that lingering question in the back of your mind?  Maybe something that has bothered you for years, but you never had the courage to ask of someone?  How about longtime rumors that you feel need to be leaked into the public discourse?  Are you a kart whistleblower who has dirty laundry to air?  Do you have a beef with a community member that you want to hash out?  How about undiclosed lying or cheating claims?  Or do you have any other matter that you are seeking to pursue?  Well you've come to the right place!  In this thread I will be asking the tough questions that deserve answers.  As in any good political campaign it is always best to vet the candidates.  I'm looking for bombshells here.  Big stories.  Matters of importance.  Whether it be to ultimately cleanse the community, clear up confusion, or put matters to rest, this is my service to the Karter Contest 2k18.  I am not a participant in the contest thus I do not have any vested interested in the results.  I will not be seeking to collude, meddle, hack, or hijack the KC democracy and am not a Special Counsel to the integrity of the voting process or any other matters that may arise from it.  I am simply an interested observer and truth seeker of the questions you have.

How this will work is you post a question or topic that you want me to interrogate a member of this community on.  Please be sure to provide the username of the person you wish to be grilled included in your post.  Please also provide any and all context.  I will do my best to thoroughly investigate any questions asked and to be a fair arbiter in this process.  Feel free to question and follow up on the person you are seeking answers from yourself.  There are many topics that others will have much more knowledge on than myself so you can post you're own full Ask Them Anything's here in this thread as well and I will be here to provide any support I can.

I'll begin with a couple ATA's of my own.

User - AlexPenev
ATA - CM Non-SC Flap claimed time of 31.84 driven on June 24th, 1999 on lap 1?




Alex, this is a very interesting topic.  Questions have swirled for years and answers deserve to be had.  The circumstances around this time are very suspect.  As a site administrator at the highest level, the standard of integrity we must hold you to is high. The backstory here is back in the early days of this community Alex Penev claimed the World Record on Choco Mountain flap with an incredible time of 31.84.  Making this time even more remarkable was the fact that it was allegedly driven on lap 1!  Some years later the infamous Brian Gallo claimed the WR here with an even more ridiculous time of 31.67 also claiming to have driven it on lap 1.  Brian's time has since been laughed off and his reputation has been forever tarnished by it.  However, Alex has managed to avoid the scrutiny after all these years while maintaining a leadership role in the community.  His time is equally unbelievable as Gallo's less than 2 tenths away.  As a track that had an SC even back then, photographic proof would have been less solidifying.  To this day I do not know that anyone has managed such a time on lap 1 on this track some nearly 20 years later despite more knowledge, new strategies, and incredible talents such as Matthias playing the game.  How could this be?  In recent years this flap time has quietly been removed from the official rankings by an unknown staff member, but the time still stands on mkwrs.com as one of the longest lasting records of all-time at 2,036 days.  So Alex, do you want to come clean after all these years?  Coming clean would certainly do you no harm these days, as you have done so much for this community and are well respected.  Lying about 1 WR time in 1999 is easily forgiveable.  Or perhaps do you and Brian Gallo share some breathtaking strategy that has been buried for all these years and sworn to secrecy?  Could it be that we have simply overlooked something crucial on this lap that makes such a time quite achievable?  I have an open mind and am eager to know more.

User - Nicholas Harvey
ATA - Harvey aka Duff?


Nicholas Harvey is a firebrand personality in the Mario Kart Community.  The Jack of all Karts, but Ace of none.  But is he simply a outplaying us in this game of cards?  Is Nick simply a poker face to a true identity?  The rise of Harvey coincided strangely with the fall of another community member...Drew Blumfield aka Duff(jr).  For those who don't know Duff, he is one of the most memorable personalities to ever grace the message boards.  Known as a genius level intellect but also a master troll, Duff has accomplished a lot in his time with the community.  In SMK he is widely regarded as the best Battle Mode player to ever pick up a controller.  He also was a successful businessman, re-selling iPhones in the Steve Job's days capitalizing on Apple fever.  Duff also ran a youtube channel, v-logging his trips to the Old Country Buffet when Google just started to become mainstream.  The other side of Duff was that he had an appetite for stirring the pot.  He was frequently a troublemaker in the old IRC chatroom days, easily able to turn the busy chatroom for or against him with a skilled line of text.  He was also a prolific message board poster with one of the highest post per day counts on the MB.  But one day at 4,999 posts Duff suddenly disappeared.  In his wake emerged the forum account of Nicholas Harvey.  Prior to this Harvey had posted, but very infrequently.  However immediately upon Duff going away the Harvey account took off.  The peak posting rate of each account in their prime usage years is strikingly similar.  Moreover the writing style of both accounts share similarities including the same knack for causing trouble and trolling.  Most recently Harvey even decided to caption a photo of Drew Blumfield and seems most at home conversing with senior members of the SMK community.  Finally, an unsubstantiated rumor that has been around for quite some time is that at one point many years ago an IP address, possibly obtained through a 'whois' IRC inquiry of duffjr (Duff's old IRC moniker) came back as a match to Nicholas Harvey's primary message board IP.  Nick, it's been an incredible run and a work of genius to keep this persona going for so long, but it's time to come clean.  Are you Duff?

ALAKTORN wrote on 06/01/18 at 12:11:24:


To my recollection the timer does not flip back to zero after hitting 99'59"99 it sticks on that.  Since the time Alex claimed to have driven was set on lap 1 it would not have been possible for him to use the timer glitch.

I cannot say with certainty if Matthias has ever beaten the time on lap 1, but the current WR stands at 31.67 (tied with the infamous Brian Gallo claim) only .17 faster after 19 years have elapsed.  The current record had the benefit of being driven on lap 2 and also has an extra mini turbo added that was not used in any older recorded records.  Considering all of this evidence to me it seems unlikely that Alex drove the time he claims to have driven.

ALAKTORN wrote on 06/01/18 at 15:03:06:


I want to address your concerns, because I think you're taking an honest approach here.  So I conducted an analysis in an attempt to give Alex the benefit of the doubt.  I think Alex claimed to drive it in PAL so I will adjust the numbers accordingly. From each track I have selected the latest possible flap WR set in the 1990s and calculated the delta from the current record.

(Source: https://mkwrs.com/mk64/)

LR - Past - 1999-10-29      0'31"50      0'37"88      Mike S - Present - 2018-01-04      0'31"28      0'37"61      MR/VAJ       PAL Delta = .27

MMF - Past - 1999-11-05      0'23"83      0'28"65      Ben M - Present - 2017-11-27      0'23"14      0'27"82      MR/TJL      PAL Delta = .83

KTB - Past - 1999-08-20      0'26"09      0'31"37      Zwartjes - Present - 2015-12-06      0'25"65      0'30"84      MR      PAL Delta = .53

KD - Past - 1999-08-07      0'32"87      0'39"52      Penev - Present - 2013-12-05      0'32"47      0'39"04      MR      PAL Delta = .48

TT - Past - 1999-11-03      0'49"36      0'59"35      Zwartjes - Present - 2013-12-09      0'48"93      0'58"83      MR      PAL Delta = .52

FS - Past - 1999-06-27      0'32"64      0'39"25      Peter E - Present - 2015-10-19      0'31"84      0'38"29      MR     PAL Delta = .96

CM - Past - 1999-06-24      0'31"84      0'38"29      Penev - Present - 2018-01-30      0'31"67      0'38"08      MR      PAL Delta = .21


MR - Past - 1999-06-14      0'23"24      0'27"94      Penev - Present - 2018-03-09      0'22"99      0'27"64      MR/Dan      PAL Delta = .30

WS - Past - 1999-11-12      1'12"80      1'27"53      Zwartjes - Present - 2017-12-17      1'11"49      1'25"96      MR    PAL Delta = 1.57

SL - Past - 1999-11-04      0'31"89      0'38"34      Zwartjes - Present - 2017-10-28      0'31"45      0'37"82      MR      PAL Delta = .52

RRa - Past - 1999-10-09      0'47"16      0'56"71      Zwartjes - Present - 2014-08-02      0'46"27      0'55"63      MR    PAL Delta = 1.08

BC - Past - 1999-10-09      0'36"40      0'43"77      Zwartjes - Present - 2013-06-25      0'35"93      0'43"20      MR    PAL Delta = .57

DKJP - Past - 1999-07-12      0'36"04      0'43"33      Penev - Present - 2018-05-13      0'35"08      0'42"18      Zoran    PAL Delta = 1.15

YV - Past - 1999-09-29      0'26"56      0'31"94      Mike S - Present - 2018-01-18      0'25"99      0'31"25      MR     PAL Delta = .69

BB - Past - 1999-09-26      0'34"30      0'41"24      Zwartjes - Present - 2017-07-03      0'33"94      0'40"81      MR     PAL Delta = .43

RRo - Past - 1999-11-02      1'38"35      1'58"26      Zwartjes - Present - 2018-04-13      1'36"94      1'56"56      MR    PAL Delta = 1.70

Alex's claimed CM time is the lowest delta from current WR of all times in this comparison.  This is despite him driving the lap on the first lap when it is known to be faster to start the lap on lap 2 for this track.  Interestingly the other dominate name in this analysis is Zwartjes who is also under scrutinity.  But I won't dig into that heresay argument as my focus is simply on this CM flap time.  Even the objectively most simple and optimized flaps in LR and MR have a higher delta than Alex's flap.  To me it seems this flap is a clear outlier.  Again to give him the benefit of the doubt, maybe he really does know a strategy that we don't, but until that is revealed I can't help but look at his WR claim with a healthy dose of skepticism.

It's a shame then that "old stories" such as these have not been fully investigated and litigated in the public domain.  Thank God I made this thread.

Trying to derail the thread.  Such a poor effort.  So very weak.  Transparent even.  Ignored.  

MVT wrote on 06/01/18 at 22:20:48:


You are the Kart Community equivalent of a national treasure. I for one am glad to see these things investigated, thank God indeed. Id always had my suspicions of Penev ever since I learned he was Australian.

Also, iirc, that Duff/Harvey IP address thing was just a coincidence. Something something Gamesurge server and not home address IP. Im not the computer science expert though, im only ranked SMKFan in that. Also we all pretty much ask him if he is Harvey at every CDM, and he always says he knows nothing about it. Apart from that one time we asked him and he ate a moth instead of replying. Maybe thats a clue.

So you mean Duff has sent me a destroyed US SNES to have it modded to run PAL games, then get it returned with a PAL SMK, and offered me an Earthbound cartridge for the service with a handwritten letter mentioning praying God every day to make sure it would arrive properely?

Well, makes sense.

KC '18 has brought a few out from the shadows and is bringing back good memories of my early kart days.

Hope you're well MVT.

Harvey Kartel wrote on 06/02/18 at 20:01:33:


Do you all see that head^

This head is his head

This is clearly a proof that duffjr is making a mockery at us, and he's giving us a clue at the same time, just look again at this head in the /highlight if you see what I see/mean^

Also, into the /highlight you can see that "his head" is followed by these words: "It was Mountain Drew Baja Blast"

You are debunked Drew

Next time you see Duff in person anywhere ask him who the current mayor of Gulfport, Mississippi is. Ask him who is representing the Gulf Coast area of Mississippi in the House of Representatives. Ask him who recently resigned as Mississippi Senator after serving in the U.S. Senate since 1978, and who has replaced him in the interim. (And who Mississippi's other Senator is). No Googling allowed.

Note: the correct answers to some of these questions may change in November.

You have less than 12 hours remaining to vote for Mississippi's biggest nerd.  

I voted today... for the Republican nominees for the House and Senate.

Antistar wrote on 06/06/18 at 01:44:07:


fixed  

but yeah nah this conspiracy is whack

harvey's real, dont waste your time on pointless conspiracies brahs  

I get it seems weird to yall yuropeens but harvey's actually BETTER than the average US SE murican

trust me on this shit

it's nuts down here

Antistar wrote on 06/06/18 at 02:57:04:


wAow

>cracks rigging knuckles

Alex has given his view on this before: http://www.mariokart64.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1407492487/275 (relevant discussion on pages 11-13). Basically, he didn't intentionally lie, and he thinks it was real, but it's possible that he made some sort of mistake. We're never going a get a definitive answer so you'll just have to decide for yourself whether to believe it. It's not on the site any more anyway.