Mario Kart: Double Dash!! Players' Page

gg Brendan you legend

Alex @ Wednesday, March 15th 01:59AM [link]

Movement

#1 Mike Koehoorn was active and improved his Baby Park 7lap, although did not gain any new records or new spots. Nearby #4 Xander Giordani reached the No. 3 spot in 60Hz by passing Mattilde in the green charts. Xander's improvements included 2nd place in Stadium lap and his 30th top-10 score with a 9th place run of Colosseum 2lap.

#23 Xander Jay moved ahead of Greg L after improving his weakest time (Peach Beach) to top-30 and posting multiple strong cuts in Special Cup. His best ones were 12th in Castle 3lap and 10th in Castle lap, getting his first top-10 score. His new Rainbow 3lap, ranked 15th, was also pretty strong as its his fourth best ranked time. #30 Zach Orlosky was also active and may be able to pass Ryan S soon.

#58 Kyle Hughes returned after 1.5 years break and re-gained three positions that he had lost over the absence. His new scores included two God standards on Dry Dry Desert, which now give him 7/8 Gods in what is a very strong Mushroom Cup. His Special Cup, in comparison, is not as strong and he managed to score his third Myth standard there.

Lots of active players around top-200. #164 Ricky Haitaian continued to pull away from the pack, achieving an 8pt AF cut and 3 new Titan standards. Out of his 12 Titan times, 10 of them are on the first 10 races -- might be trying to do them all in order? #182 Shane Pizza reported a 5pt AF cut and gained six spots on the ladder, as well as earned his first top-100 time. His new lap there, ranked 100th, qualified for the God standard. Enzo Vusur's 17pt AF cut clinched a top-200 spot for him, and he is now almost 100 spots ahead of where he was six weeks ago when he resumed his activity. Among Enzo's nine improvements was his third Titan standard (on Rainbow 3lap) and he reached 32/32 Heroes after beating his last three Experts. #202 Sean Aksdal is still below his peak rank of 194th, but for the first time became an overall Hero B this week following some epic cuts on Baby Park 7lap where he raced his fifth Titan standard. And finally #206 Jack Hotchkiss, who has been chasing Enzo for many weeks, is about to reach the top-200 as well. His 14pt AF cut almost got him there, and was almost entirely due to a single track (Sherbet) that Jack improved from 400+ to 164th place.

Near the top-250 we have #259 Derek Vincenzo taking lead over #260 Charlotte Crego, #266 Hailey Hable, and #271 Lukas H. Derek returned after two months off and reported a 9pt AF cut powered by a new top-250 and new Hero time on Desert lap. Charlotte continued playing Mario Circuit as she did last month and finally secured a Hero standard lap. Hailey last played two years ago and said that she's mounting a comeback, and will make videos going forward. Lukas joined the others before him in becoming a Hero player, reporting a few new scores including his third top-200 time. All of these players could be top-250 level in coming weeks.

#359 Tristan Carter joined the site two weeks ago with some times as good as top-200 level and some as bad as 786. Actually I was mistaken because his weakest time was 825th, not merely 786th. Anyway, Tristan has polished some of those initial wrinkles and improved most of his scores to top-500 level for now. He only played a handful of tracks and slashed 56pt off his AF, and there should be more good sized chunks coming.

#408 Maurice Bieler did some casual runs last week of tracks he hadn't played, just enough to complete his timesheet. We mentioned that his Bowser's Castle was ranked 1200+ and his Colosseum, Jungle, Stadium and Cruiser were all around 900-1000th place. Maurice dedicated the week to fixing those eyesores and reached 32/32 Experts, whereby almost everything is now top-500 level. In fact, his worst times as now on tracks that he didn't play this week. Maurice's 199pt AF cut, enough to climb 184 positions, is a testament to how much ground he made up for only submitting ten scores. Maurice's new best time, 258th in Luigi Circuit, was almost top-250 level. He would probably have reached top-400 overall had he played something he was not so good at, but he could still get it next time.

#838 James Bulluck completed his timesheet and is almost 500 points ahead of where he joined a couple of weeks ago. Last week he had 2 Advanced and 9 Intermediate standards compared to this week's 13 Advanced and 19 Intermediates. His best performances are still in the 750-800 region but he is consistently hitting close to that on all tracks and can start to practice advanced techniques on his favourites.

Also active: #121 Tom Hagen (up to 30/32 Titans), #428 Sean Dunn (return after nearly two years), #629 Juniper Lasky (fifth Expert standard), #868 Aaron Jablonski (return after nearly two years), #1036 James Casey (reached Intermediate C level) and Ellie Smith (filling many gaps in her timesheet).

New Records

None this week.

New Players

Welcome to...

Avery Widner, USA (~1103, Intermediate D).
Yonatan Arcos Trejo, USA (~1260, Beginner B).

Avery has mostly Intermediate times and is just a few tracks short of a full timesheet. He said that he's still learning mini-turbos and practicing doing them on straights. Yonatan has a handful of scores and his best ones are top-400 level, so with a full timesheet he could be a top-400 player.

Desert bandwagon this week

Alex @ Tuesday, March 7th 09:42PM [link]

Movement

No updates at all at the top this week. That's kind of new!

#24 Xander Jay surpassed Guillaume B and Konsta J to claim a top-25 spot. He improved his Yoshi Circuit times by a little bit and also upgraded his worst track, Sherbet Land, by a good amount to get top-30 times there. His reduced his ARR from 0.38 to 0.22 and overall God status is creeping ever closer.

#55 Jon Kay sent his first scores in five months, and they were some strong cuts on Yoshi Circuit to earn his 15 and 16th Myth standards. His old times were ranked almost 80th and his new times are 38th and 44th, so we're talking hefty cuts. Jon gained 2.3 AF points and right on the heels of #54 Aaron vdS, who was active last week.

#77 Manfred Guenther also reported his first handful of times of the year, including two new God standards on Dry Dry Desert. He now has five God standards and the new ones pushed him past the Titan ranks and into overall Myth D status.

#122 Tom Hagen continued his climb is now twenty positions higher than he was when he returned to the game in January. This week he improved his worst times: Beach 3lap from 189th to 134th and Jungle 3lap from 184th to 131st, as well as three other cuts, to reach 28/32 Titans. His four remaining Hero times are also some of his weakest ranked times, so they are now obvious targets.

#211 Enzo Vusur and #218 Jack Hotchkiss both reported big cuts as they approach the top-200. Enzo was ahead of Jack a few weeks ago, then fell silent and let Jack overtake him, but grinded hard this week for a 32pt cut to claw back a lead. He improved 20 times and 12 of them were Expert-to-Hero upgrades that give him 29/32 Heroes. He also scored a new highest rank of 137th place in Rainbow lap. Jack reported 8 scores and played some of his best tracks, improving his Baby Park from 63rd to 48th and Luigi lap from 69th to 46th, both of them God standards. Jack's AF is 250+ so these God times stick out a lot.

A few active players are vying a top-250 spot. #260 Charlotte Crego had a couple of new scores, one of which was her second top-200 time of 177th place in Desert lap. #275 Trenton Steinburg, armed with 10 cuts, jumped over both #277 Lukas H and #283 Noah Brown to take a lead against those old rivals and reached Hero status in the process. Lukas found his first ever Titan standard with 135th place (his best) in Desert lap, and landed bang on the Hero-Expert border, so he should become a Hero player with his next update. Noah also joined in the Desert theme and improved what were some of his weakest times there, and is only 0.12 ARR Points from graduating the Expert ranks himself.

#591 Theo Davelaar returned after six months away and reported 24 improvements, including filling in all of his previously blank scores, to get a 127pt AF cut. It's his first week on the AF chart and he's top-600, which could improve quickly if he returns some tracks where he is still ranked 800+ or 900+ (or even 1100+ in the case of Baby Park lap). Theo had only 2 Expert times previously and now has 11, so he is already Advanced A and looking towards becoming overall Expert level.

#592 Maurice Bieler debuted on the rankings after trying some of his missing tracks for the first time. Maurice's best times are around the top-300 region, whereas his first attempts at Rainbow are near 500th (good) and his first attempts at Bowser's Castle are Beginner level and 1200+. He says that he will try to push them to Expert, which is certainly possible for someone who already has several Hero standards. We expect Maurice to move towards #550 fairly quickly.

#763 Ian M completed his timesheet last week and slashed an extra 65pt AF points this week. He returned to his Beginner tracks and upgraded them to Intermediate level, and cleaned up the Mushroom and Flower Cup tracks to 15 out of 16 Advanced times. This was enough to become overall Advanced D, but he still has mostly Intermediates in Star and Special Cups, so we expect him to polish those Cups next.

Also active: #30 Zach Orlosky (reducing the gap to Ryan S), #41 Jack Houlihan (now up to 20 top-50 times), #172 Ricky Haitaian (first pair of top-100 times), #188 Shane Pizza (beat his Desert time by 5(!) standards), #414 Nadia Houston (first Hero time, on Desert lap), #438 Gianni Barletta (up to 29/32 top-500s), #1055 James Casey (reached overall Intermediate level after racing 15 new Intermediate scores), ~1311 James Bulluck and ~1374 Christian Gooding (both filling in gaps in their timesheets).

New Records

None this week.

New Players

Welcome to...

Andy A, USA (#507, Expert D).

Andy has some Expert times and one Hero time (with video!) but otherwise a modest timesheet with mostly Expert standards.

First impressions, Wild Hearts seem to be very MH-lite

Alex @ Wednesday, March 1st 10:22PM [link]

Movement

#1 Mike Koehoorn, three new scores, three new records. See below.

#4 Xander G and #26 Xander J were both active and could soon be the first name-pair to both reach God status. The G-man reported three small cuts, notable improving his Baby Park lap from 10th to 6th place and his Colosseum lap from 8th down to 4th. He still has a few scores ranked in the 10-15 region that are below his average of 6.6th place. The J-man is carrying all the responsibility of reaching double-God (because G-man is already there) and sent in two cuts this week, helping him reduce his ARR to 0.38 points -- getting pretty close!

#54 Aaron van der Sande reported a 1.8pt AF and somehow didn't gain any spots, which is a shame because he's been making a strong case for top-50 level. Aaron slashed four stands off his Mushroom City course time (from Titan+ to Myth A), raced his first top-20 time with 18th place in Baby Park lap, and finally went sub-1'16 in Luigi Circuit. Catching #50 Stacy will take a bit of work, but overtaking Ivy or Michael D by next week are both reasonable targets.

Looking at the players round the top-200, #176 Ricky Haitaian maintained his lead and secured his first Myth standard this week. #190 Shane Pizza gained 10 positions, much fewer than last week but it's only getting harder from here. Shane said that he has relaxed the grind a bit after reaching 32/32 Heroes, and this week tried to push some individual scores higher. He upgraded four of his Heroes to Titan level and one of them (Baby Park lap) to Myth level. #202 Sean A was quiet this week and remains on the wrong side of 200.

#236 Jack Hotchkiss and #262 Charlotte Crego both recorded some gains. Jack jumped on the Baby Park wagon and improved his lap there from 233rd to an impressive first-God-standard of 63rd place (meanwhile his Baby Park course time is woefully inadequate at near-500th place). Charlotte raced four improvements and beat one of her weakest tracks, Bowser's Castle, albeit not fast enough for the Hero standard yet. #281 Lukas H, #286 Noah Brown and #287 Trenton Steinburg are all looking good for future top-250 spots. These former Jack rivals all submitted larger AF cuts compared to Jack this week, but are still a bit behind. Lukas reported 20 small cuts that included four new Hero standards (up to 13/32) and a second top-200 time with 192nd place on Desert lap. Noah was once quite strong in this rivalry before taking some big breaks, and bounced back with a 21pt AF cut to reach top-300 and to overtake Trenton again. Noah is up to 15/32 Heroes as of this week and should achieve overall Hero status any day now. Trenton's 11pt AF cut was also sufficient to get a top-300 spot, and he is likewise just 0.1 ARR points away from achieving overall Hero status.

#650 Juniper Lasky gained 56 positions this week to cap off a 400 position climb over the past five weeks. This week they raced 20 new personal bests, reached 32/32 Advanced, and achieved their third and fourth Expert time (both on Colosseum). Juniper could be a top-500 player within a month but says that school is going to absorb a lot of the free time in coming weeks to months, so we shouldn't expect big rises.

Also active: #362 Gabe Rombalski (return after nine months break), #426 Nadia Houston (improved all 13 scores she needed to reach 32/32 top-500s), #441 Gianni Barletta (first scores since Christmas), ~771 Maurice Bieler (raced several strong top-400 times while still completing his empty tracks), #827 Ian M (completed his timesheet from last week; best time is ranked 569th).

New Records

Mike K improved both Dry Dry Desert records, taking the course time down to 1'27"866 and the lap down to 27"334. He already held the lap record with last week's 27"39, but David held the previous course record with a 1'27"90 from 2019 and Mike previously had a 1'27"95. The lap time is a comparatively bigger record gap as it's a 0"08 distance to second place, whereas the course time is 0"04 ahead.

Mike also improved the Daisy Cruiser 3lap record to 1'35"865, getting the sub. His previous time of 1'36"08 was from back in 2018, so it took him a few years to improve himself. David GP raced a 1'35"90 back in 2019, so Mike's new time was just a little bit faster.

With taking two more records from David, Mike is now up to 27/32 WRs. David and Mattilde have 2 each and Ivy has 1.

New Players

Welcome to...

Tristan Carter, USA (#406, Expert B).
Chloie X, Ireland (~1328, Beginner C).
James Bulluck, USA (~1330, Beginner C).

Tristan said that he has spent very disproportionate amounts of time on the tracks, which explains why his range is 159-784th. Actually, he has several scores in the 150-200 region and could be a strong player. Chloie has submitted only a few tracks at Advanced level of play. James has submitted more tracks than Chloie at Intermediate level.

Make love not multiple accounts

Alex @ Tuesday, February 21st 09:52PM [link]

Several players have been removed due to alt-accounting and unfairly taking up multiple slots in the rankings. As a result, most people gained a few places.

Movement

#1 Mike Koehoorn reported his first improvements in three months and scored a pair of records. See below!

#4 Xander Giordani was also active and played Dry Dry Desert, one of the tracks that Mike played. Xander moved his course time to top-10 level there and bumped his lap up to 6th place.

#26 Xander Jay continued to cement "Xander" as a statistically winning name in Double Dash: with a combined sum of 4th + 26th = 30th, Giordani and Jay are leading the second best name-pair by nine positions. Xander reported three small cuts with his highlight being his 23rd God standard on DK Mountain 3lap, which he says was a long time coming.

#54 Aaron van der Sande continues to creep towards the top-50, gaining three positions this week. He reported 5 improvements of which three were upgrades from Titan to Myth, giving him 20/32 Myths. Aaron said that one of them, in particular, took more than a day of playing to achieve and that he is released to finally nail the Myth there. He feels that getting all 32 Myths is now within the realm of possibility.

#128 Tom Hagen sent his first submission in four weeks, slicing 9 points off his AF and gaining 14 positions (he also passed me!). He reached overall Titan C level with his new cuts. Tom previously had a top-100 time and kept it, which is Waluigi lap still being 100th place. This week he raced three new additions to that roster with 78th place in Baby lap, 90th in Bridge lap, and 90th in Yoshi lap. The first and second of those were also his first Myth times, and the Baby Park was fast enough for the God standard. Tom still has a few Hero standards in his timesheet that he has not touched since May last year, which could be overdue for a revisit.

The top-200 region is seeing plenty of activity. #181 Ricky Haitaian broke through two weeks ago and is pulling away with an 8pt cut this week, gaining ten positions. His newest set of scores included his sixth Titan, a 32"4 Cruiser lap. Ricky's six Titan standards are all laps in the first seven tracks and so, if the pattern continues, then Waluigi Stadium should be next in line. Jumping on rank 200 exactly is #200 Shane Pizza, who joined a month at just over 400th place. Shane reported a huge 111pt AF cut this week and improved 29 scores. Last week he was Expert A with 11 Hero times and this week he is Hero C with a full set of 32/32 Heroes, including 2 Titans and videos across the board. That's some climb! Close behind #202 Sean Aksdal is reviving his play with his first improvement in almost a year. Sean hit a peak of 194th and has slipped back across the top-200 line from inactivity, but has recently been practicing Baby Park and just improved his lap from 144th to 73rd place while also achieving the God standard. Future top-200 hopefuls #248 Jack Hotchkiss and #264 Charlotte Crego were also active; Jack raced his first sub-minute Rainbow lap but says that he will focus on college for a bit and will defer playing, whereas Charlotte says that she is just starting up again.

#305 Lukas H finally passed his rival #311 Noah Brown, with the pair looking set to break top-300 soon enough. Lukas reported a 24pt cut and Noah reported an 8pt cut. Lukas reached Expert A level after racing 17 improvements and notably his 9th Hero standard, but said that he will take a break to speedrun another game. This should give Noah an opportunity to get back ahead.

#452 Nadia Houston had a 46pt AF cut to report, borne from just 15 improvements. She upgraded her last handful of Advanced standards to Expert level and also reached overall Expert C level. Nadia's best time was 376th place in Baby Park, her first top-400 time, although her Beach and Mountain times were very close to the barrier as well. She said that her long term goal will be to get all 32 Hero standards, so she is looking out for her first one.

Also active: #309 Stephen De Winter (finally got the 60Hz sub-3 Rainbow he wanted), #1022 Nadir Zafani (raced his first Advanced standard on Mountain 3lap), #1182 Liam Barr (reached Beginner B status), and both ~953 Maurice Bieler and ~1396 Christian Gooding are completing their timesheets.

New Records

Mike K improved his Luigi Circuit lap record by 0"001 to 24"078. A very small improvement after nearly four years since he took the record from Andrew, but still the only player to race under 24"1. Mike also took the Dry Dry Desert lap record with a 27"393. The previous record was 27"41 by David GP from early 2019 and Mike had a 27"43 from a year before that.

With taking back one of David's records, Mike is back to 25/32 WRs.

New Players

Welcome to...

James Casey, USA (#1135, Beginner A).
Quack Cheese, USA (~1203, Beginner A).

James is confusingly known as Pizzatime but is not Shane Pizza, which has tripped me up a few times. He races many of his scores on his livestream and has a few Intermediate standards. Quack not-their-real-name has raced all 16 course times but forgot to submit their laps, and would be ranked much higher after doing so.

Valentine

Alex @ Tuesday, February 14th 10:21PM [link]

Movement

#4 Xander Giordani took another step forward, passing #5 Andrew M to reach the USA No.2 spot (after David). Andrew has been inactive since 2019, so we don't expect him to defend his place in the immediate future. Xander reported only a few improvements and the significant ones were his Dino Dino Jungle times: from 14th to 9th on the 3lap and from 7th down to 3rd place on the lap. With another top-10 in the bag, Xander now has 27/32 top-10s. His weakest time is now his 13th place on Sherbet Land 3lap, the same track he raced a bronze medal lap just last week. Meanwhile, #26 Xander Jay returned with his first submission in over two years and will be happy to still be top-30, but sad to have become Second Xander (because Xander G was barely top-100 back then).

#30 Zach Orlosky raced his 20th God standard with a 1'42"2 Jungle run. It was fast enough for 16th place, making it his new best ranked time. Zach needs another 2.5 AF points to catch Ryan S in order to enter the 20s ranks.

#46 Andrew Harvey tackled DK Mountain again and finally scored the 32nd Myth time with a 1'44"2, 0.7 faster than last week's time. He also improved his Waluigi Stadium from 41st to 30th, which was the highlight among a few smaller cuts. #41 Jack Houlihan was quiet this week, but Andrew did not gain any ground on Jack anyway, so they remain five spots apart.

#57 Aaron van der Sande moved up by three spots this week, slightly gaining on Jack and Andrew. He became overall Myth C and achieved his 17th Myth standard with a 24"1 Sherbet lap, and sent one of his first videos. Aaron said that he doesn't think he will play for the next few weeks, which would give Jack and Andrew a chance to escape him.

#104 Luca Calloway returned with his first scores since September, scoring a 14pt AF cut. He had some rank 50ish times back then and added more of similar level, such as a few upgrades from Titan to Myth standards: Sherbet from 78th to 32nd, Mountain from 39th to 32nd, Jungle 3lap from 80th to 30th, and Jungle lap from 96th to 55th. Luigi Circuit was an even bigger improvement, from 200th place to 54th on the course and 52nd on the lap, the latter being fast enough for the God standard. Luca still has a few 200+ ranked times that could propel him up the charts. He is also among the highest ranked players without proof at the moment, so maybe he will find a way to make some videos.

#243 Enzo Vusur is holding off a rampaging #251 Jack Hotchkiss, perhaps briefly. Enzo extended his comeback into a fourth week, gaining a further 19 spots, and reached the top-250. He upgraded some Expert times to Hero and raced his second Titan standard, this time on Peach Beach lap. Jack's 45pt AF cut would have passed an idling Enzo and would have hit 250 band on, so it's too bad for Jack that Enzo denied him. Jack finally improved some of those weaker times that had been anchoring him down. With an average of closer to 300th, it's good that he improved his 400+ ranked times on Desert, Cruiser, Castle, and Rainbow. His biggest cut was Rainbow 3lap from 502nd to 216th, his best new time was City lap from 228th to 162nd, and his weakest improvement was Castle 3lap because it's still ranked 400+ despite jumping more than a hundred places. If Jack irons out all the wrinkles in his timesheet then we are confident he will be pushing past top-200.

Since Jack has bounced away from the top-300, his rivals #301 Trenton Steinburg, #318 Noah B, and #335 Lukas H are left one short. Trenton raced his third Titan this week with a sub-1'10 Beach time, gained four spots, and is on the verge of top-300. Noah was again silent this week. Lukas continued (and succeeded) to play catch-up and reported a 12pt AF cut, increasing his number of top-300 ranked times to 11/32. Lukas should reach Expert A level any day now.

#490 Nadia Houston gained 77 spots with 22 new personal bests. She said that her immediate goal was to get everything to Expert level, and she started the week with 5 Experts and finished with 25 Experts. Only one track she attempted did not yield an upgrade from Advanced, but maybe she will get it next time. Not surprisingly, Nadia reached overall Expert D level with this overhaul, and made the top-500. For next week we expect her to hunt down those handful of remaining Advanced times.

Also active: #191 Ricky Haitaian (fifth Titan time), #390 Stephen De Winter (60Hz Rainbow double-Titan), #445 Tony B (sixth Hero time), #616 Matthew Street (up to 31/32 Advanced times in his third week), #783 Lily Pad (first scores in two years), #1047 Nadir Zafani (completed his timesheet), ~1408 Christian Gooding (filling in timesheet gaps).

New Records

None this week.

New Players

Elle Smith, USA (~1404, Beginner D).

Elle only got the game very recently and has played just a few tracks so far.

More top-5 reshuffles

Alex @ Wednesday, February 8th 08:34PM [link]

Movement

#5 Xander Giordani passed #7 Douglas D ad additionally slipped in between #6 Rebecca C and #4 Andrew M. Remember that, until recently, Rebecca was ahead of Andrew and the pair have been losing AF points and even swapped places largely due to Xander beating their times. Now Xander looks primed to pass both. As of this week, with his new 0.6pt AF cut, Xander is 0.03 ahead of Rebecca and 0.15 behind Andrew. His three new improvements were 3rd place in Sherbet lap, 5th in Mountain 3lap, and 3rd in Mountain lap. All of these were new top-5s for him and his timesheet is now 9/32 top-5 and 27/32 top-10.

#30 Zach Orlosky reported a single improvement, but it helped him pass both Mikel N and former champion Paul T in the rankings. His 1'42"6 Jungle run, more than a second better than his previous time from exactly one year ago, was an improvement from 47th to 19th place and was Zach's third top-20 score.

#41 Jack Houlihan, #46 Andrew Harvey and #60 Aaron an der Sande were also active within the top-100. Jack raced his sixth God standard with a 1'43"1 Mountain 3lap, moving up from 22nd to 14th place in that track and threatening a top-10 spot because he said that he wants to get a 1'42 there. This single improvement pushed Jack over the threshold to reach overall Myth A level. Andrew had already reached top-50 level last week and pushed himself a little further, gaining a further four spots with 5 improvements. His big cuts were both on DK Mountain, getting top-50 on the course time and jumping from 72nd to 37th on the 1lap. The Mountain is Andrew's only remaining Titan track; he knocked out the lap and pushed it to Myth, but his course time is his last remaining Titan and Andrew says that he will keep pursuing it. Finally, Aaron reported his first six improvements in over a month and earned a 5pt AF cut, gaining 8 positions. His biggest cuts were on Jungle, advancing 40+ positions on both the course and lap, and he earned two new Myth standards.

#197 Ricky Haitaian continued his comeback from last week and gained an additional 11 spots. Four months ago he reached a peak of #210, then took a break and slipped down the rankings a little. Last week he made up the lost ground and this week broke new highs with a top-200 spot. Ricky's eight new improvements included his first 4 Titan times -- Luigi lap, Baby Park lap, Desert lap and Bridge lap -- all of them top-200 level and the Desert lap, in particular, was a stellar improvement from 163rd to 105th place (his best).

#262 Enzo Vusur extended his comeback into a third week and advanced another 21 spots. Last week he was Expert A with 11 Hero times and this week he reached overall Hero D level with 14 Heroes and 1 Titan. His Titan time was on Baby Park lap, racing 176th place. Enzo also scored 177th in Colosseum lap and 152nd in Rainbow lap this week, so he is not solely relying on Baby Park and has already collected five top-200 times.

The traveling rivalry between Trenton-Noah-Jack-Lukas continued to collectively move up. #297 Jack Hotchkiss is the new leader with a 24pt AF cut to overtake #305 Trenton, who in turn reported a 6pt cut. Noah was silent this week while #342 Lukas reported a 10pt cut to keep up. Meanwhile, newcomer #313 Shane Pizza has jumped into the fray and split the foursome in half. Back to Jack: six improvements, reached overall Hero D status, and improved his best time (Luigi lap) from 104th to 69th to additionally score his first Myth standard -- all up a great week for him. Trenton raced his second Titan standard, following last week's first, by improving his Baby Park lap even further. Lukas has been splitting his time between multiple Kart games but still managed 11 improvements this week. And newcomer Shane gained over 100 spots in his first week by improving all 32 scores. He raced 7 new Hero times (up from 4 to 11) as well as his first pair of top-200 times, a 189th place run of Cruiser lap and 199th place run of Yoshi lap. Shane may have some momentum behind him to take on Jack and Trenton ahead of him.

Also active: #309 Stephen De Winter (trying to get Rainbow top-100 in 60Hz), #425 Emo Yosh (up to 31/32 Expert), #567 Nadia Houston (fifth Expert time, on Baby lap), #706 Juniper Lasky (gained 117 places and raced a second Expert time), ~1255 Nadir Zafani (completing half of his timesheet).

New Records or Players

None this week.

Campcampcampcampcamp

Alex @ Wednesday, February 1st 09:17PM [link]

Movement

#7 Xander Giordani led activity with three improvements, reducing the gap to #6 Muwaffaq to 0.28 AF points. He could catch up in one or two weeks! Xander's improvements this week were to get his Mountain lap to top-10 and minor cuts on both of his Rainbow times. He improved his Rainbow 3lap time from 13th to 11th, failing to get top-10 there, but captured his final God standard (the same one that #5 Rebecca is still missing) to achieve a 32/32 Gods timesheet.

#50 Andrew Harvey said that was desperate to reach top-50 level this week and fought hard on multiple fronts to get a few scores over the lie. He passed Maxime D and Stacy N in the rankings after improving 7 scores, landing exactly on 50th place. Andrew mostly focused on his weaker times, particularly those ranked 70+. His best score of the week was 37th place in Jungle lap, where he was previously 61st, and that particular improvement pushed him up to 30/32 Myths.

#283 Enzo Vusur made a comeback last week where he returned after six months off. This week he pushed a further 17 positions forward, admitting that he targeted his weakest times that had the most potential for gains. Baby Park is still not doing Enzo any favours, down to 387th from 455th and still his worst time, but he managed some strong cuts on City 3lap (276th), Yoshi lap (264th) and Castle 3lap (241st), with some of his 7 improvements being over 100 positions. Two of Enzo's new times were also new Hero standards, now up to 11/32 Heroes.

#311 Trenton Steinburg overtook #316 Noah Brown this week, with rivals #319 Jack Hotchkiss right behind and #355 Lukas H trying to keep up. Everyone in the rivalry grinded Yoshi Circuit this week. Trenton reported 14 improvements and a 22pt AF cut, reaching overall Expert A level and achieving two new milestones: his first Titan time with a 22"49 Beach lap, and his first top-200 time with 199th place on Baby Park lap. His Yoshi Circuit time is 272nd. Noah only had time for the track de jour and improved his Yoshi Circuit by 100+ positions to 326th. Jack grinded harder and improved his Yoshi Circuit from 429th to 191st, a leap from Expert C to Hero C. His improved his lap to 220th, also quite strong, and found time during the week to upgrade his Jungle times from Expert to Hero as well. Jack still has aces up his sleeve with 500+ ranked scores in several tracks that could be very lucrative if he grinds them like he did with Yoshi Circuit. Lukas is trailing the trio overall but managed a 253rd place run in Yoshi Circuit, beating Trenton and Noah there while earning his sixth Hero standard.

#468 Tony B's best track last week was Mario Circuit, with both course and lap hovering around top-250 region, but that's no more. Tony's latest Rainbow outing saw him cleave both scores in half, improving his 319th course time to 156th and his 230th place lap to 105th place. This is the only track Tony played and the grind shows. If he keeps this up he's going to need videos. Tony cut a mere 8 points off his AF with these, but when you look at how many 600+ and 700+ ranked times he has, and compare to them the new Rainbows, you wonder if he could make a run for top-300 by the end of February.

#586 Nadia Houston joined a month ago and had a very eventful first week. She has been quiet for two weeks now, but came back to report a new 47pt AF cut. Nadia says that the cuts could have been larger had resuming classes not taken up so much time. Her 16 improvements were almost all within the Advanced tier, moving most times up to either Advanced A or B. One score stood out: a top-500 time on Beach lap that was Expert C, her fourth Expert and best score so far.

Also active: #32 Zach Orlosky (19th God standard on Jungle), #180 Edna Davis (first cuts of the year, earning a 12th Titan), #208 Ricky Haitaian (return after four months with several new top-200s), #435 Emo Yosh (up to 30/32 Experts), #823 Juniper Lasky (first Expert time and reached overall Advanced level), ~1364 William Selner (filling gaps in timesheet).

New Records

None this week.

New Players

Welcome to..

Liam Barr, USA (#1188, Beginner C).
Shane Pizza, USA (#412, Expert C).
Nadir Zafani, France (~1514, Newbie).
Matthew Street, USA (#646, Advanced B).

Liam has 32/32 Beginner times and says that they were all raced around ten years ago. He wants to join the site to try and get on the Combined Ranks, and is playing multiple Kart games at the moment. Shane has 4 Hero times and everything else Expert level, which is a great start for a newcomer; his best is 220th place on Daisy Cruiser lap. Nadir has only played Luigi Circuit right now, at Beginner level. Matthew has mostly Advanced times with a few Experts. His Waluigi Stadium is very likely set with the shortcut, so hopefully he can send us the non-shortcut time soon and we'll go from there.

Moving on from Sonic to GoW:R

Alex @ Sunday, January 22nd 08:44PM [link]

Movement

#8 Xander Giordani overcame #7 Douglas D in a rare top-10 reshuffle. Xander improved both of his Bowser's Castle times to single digit ranks and this move cost #5 Rebecca another 0.03 in AF, so she has dropped to 0.13 points behind #4 Andrew M despite recently being ahead and neither of them playing since. Xander's next target is #6 Muwaffaq, who has a 0.6 AF gap lead. Not insurmountable.

#32 Zach Orlosky moved ahead of two former champions, #33 Raphael S and #34 Marius M. His highlight was a new God standard--his 18th so far--on Bowser's Castle, but additional cuts in Mario Circuit and Sherbet Land also helped.

#51 Maxime Duhaime is holding off #52 Andrew Harvey, although it looks like both are going to make the top-50 soon anyway. Maxime improved 4 scores, two of which gave him extreme grief; he grinded Peach Beach to 1'08"3 and missed the God standard by 0"03 (in fact, he has the fastest non-God time) and similarly grinded Mario Circuit lap and missed the God standards by 0"06. However, he was satisfied with scoring a solid run on Beach lap, a top-40 time that is one of his top three best times. Andrew improved both his weakest time (from 87th to 72nd) as well as his best time (from 4th to 3rd), becoming the fourth player to race a sub-1'03 in Baby Park. Maxime is 1 point behind and Andrew is 3 AF points behind #50 Stacy N.

#155 Maximilian Munster is chasing down his 200+ ranked times and improved five of them this week, reducing his remaining ones from ten down to five left. He also got his 16th and 17th Titan standards, both on Wario Colosseum and passed half a dozen players in the rankings including Alec C, Garardo DA, and Chevallier F.

#321 Noah Brown, #333 Trenton Steinburg, #336 Jack Hotchkiss and #360 Lukas continued their activity, gaining 20 spots on average. Noah reached Expert A level and now has 11 Heroes after adding three new ones this week. Trenton is up to 5 Heroes and needs just 0.04 ARR points to reach Expert A. Jack also reached Expert A level and his best run for the week was 184th place in Mario Circuit lap, which is his fifth top-200 time; many of his other cuts were on his weakest tracks that are still ranked 500+. Lukas raced his 5th Hero standard and needs another 0.4 AF points to Expert A, so he is about a week behind in terms of timing. Despite behind third place in the group Jack has the most wins (11) against the others, followed by Trenton (10 wins).

#397 Wesley White achieved several of his goals at the same time, reaching top-400 and becoming an overall Expert B player this week. He said that he will stop grinding and take a short break, unless one of his brothers Connor or Evan beat his times. Connor was active just a couple of weeks ago, so it could happen. Sister #1086 Karley White continued her activity, upgrading a few more Beginner times to Intermediate level.

#473 Tony B joined the rankings a month ago and reached top-500 on New Year's, but has kept quiet for the following two weeks. He returned for the third week of the month with a 30pt AF cut borne out of only five improvements. Those cuts were in some of his worst tracks, however, and worked hard for him. Tony reached 32/32 Advanced times and is on the cusp of Expert D. His 182nd place in Baby Park still stands out as an outlier, although Tony's new 1'00"0 lap in Rainbow, ranked 230th, is not that far off and shows us that he's capable of top-200 level play in some of the toughest tracks for newcomers.

Also active: #142 Tom Hagen (return after four months), #265 Derek Vincenzo (raced a top-40 time on his best track), #300 Enzo Vusur (return after six months), #876 Juniper Lasky (completed their timesheet and raced 10 Advanced times), ~1430 Julien Thomas (filling gaps in his timesheet).

New Records

None this week.

New Players

Welcome to..

William Selner, USA (Beignner D).

William plays other Kart games and has just started to dabble in Double Dash. Only one track played so far, at high Advanced level.