No movement right at the top in April, but there was some from a player who might be there before long. Matthias Rustemeyer continued his quest to be mentioned in every news update of 2009 with his 4.2 AF cut, moving him up two places and tying Finn Berger for 29th. Matthias also achieved a very impressive ARR improvement of nearly 0.6, making him reach Legend +! Finn managed to hold his AF at exactly the same level with further improvements on CM, where he picked up his 18th GOD and also brought himself to Legend + overall! Marcos Vincius Alves made some small cuts to move up a place onto the brink of the top 50 at 51 while Rune Stubhaug, after a quiet March, continued to show his potential with a great 12.4 AF cut, sending him up 10 places into 57th. Matt Vanderwouw got himself to Legend F and 76th with a nice 9 place climb and Mat Abernethy put himself right on the edge of the Legend ranks, only needing one more ARR point to get in. He moved up 12 places into 85th.

Things were fairly quiet over on SC and once again it was Pat Bertovich who was the highest-ranked active player, cutting 0.15 from his AF but staying in 17th. Matthias also stayed where he was in 32nd with an 0.7 cut. After joining last month, Jonas Edlund made some impressive progress with a 22.3 cut to jump 29 places into 75th. Glen Stevens in 200th was the last mover, taking advantage of the highly clustered lower ranks of the SC charts to move 59 places with a cut of just under 14!

Back on non-SC, George Dimitriou was on the move again, passing 3 players for 124th. Michael Tunzi made some excellent progress, slashing almost 35 from his AF to climb 30 places into 134th. Alex Kangas went up 6 into 146th while Tianyi Liu carried on his progress from March with a 22 place rise into 178th. Eric Tapani's AF actually fell but some small PRs meant he breaks into the top 200 this time around, up one place from 201. Ryan Trovillion and Aidan Foyel both got closer to that top 200, Ryan up 7 places into 208th and Aidan reaching 216th with a nice 30 AF cut, passing 28 players. Patrick Gustie had a good month, overtaking 19 players to move into 259th while Pete Robinson continued his steady progress, up another 5 places into 268th. Daniel Pabst broke into the top 300 at 299 with his 14 place jump, cutting 11 AF.

Matt Gingery had a similar cut to Daniel, moving up 15 places into 306th. Joseph Carpenter had an even better month than he did in March, leaping past 45 players with his cut of nearly 49 to reach 315th. However, cut of the month definitely goes to new player Glen Stevens. After joining in March, Glen made an awesome cut of 116 AF and flew past 145 players, landing in 352nd! Patrick Gowey's great cut was dwarfed by comparison as he cut 60 AF and passed 76 players for 361st. Finally, Alvaro Fababu made some small cuts to move up two places into 426th and Kristopher Lamp did the same for 532nd.

Another 6 new players joined us in April:

Thomas Larsen - 416 - Expert B
Jonathan Price - 425 - Expert C - 382 SC
Anthony Menta - 473 - Advanced C
Brian Kress - 569 - Intermediate D
Sean Munger - 645 - Beginner C
Zack Weber - 658 - Beginner D

And another non-SC player joining SC:

Pete Robinson - 313 SC

And that's all for April! Join me again soon to find out who's been karting in May...

Up at the top of the non-shortcut charts, 7th-placed Vincent Tolhuis continued his quest to bridge the gap between himself and Jeffrey Gutierrez and Trystan Pugh. VAJ cut 0.625 from his AF but still needs almost 2.5 more to reach that pair. Next on the move was the worst GOD ever, Cooper Lovera. He cut nearly a point from his AF to tie Tuomas Dunkel for 19th. Finn Berger remained in 29th, turtling another few places up the charts on CM as kart phenomenon Matthias Rustemeyer bears down on him. Matthias continued his seemingly endless progress and went up another two places into 31st, passing Jonathan Bernier and the man who claims he is better than Michael Jongerius, Glyn Valentine. Marcos Vincius Alves closed in on the top 50 but remained in 52nd with his 0.7 cut.

Over on SC it was Pat Bertovich carrying his excellent progress in 2009 through into March. Pat cut another point from his AF to pass Thomas Grandjean for 17th. Not too far behind, Robert Szabo closed in on Sami Cetin in 22nd with a small cut. The next name should be familiar to you all; that's right, Matthias was on the move here too, up another place into 32nd. George Dimitriou had a terrific month, cutting almost 9 from his AF to move up 8 places into 42nd. Eric Tapani passed 11 people to reach 112th, while Corey Thompson actually managed to rise 9 places into 270th despite his AF getting worse!

Over on non-SC, Brent Wingert continued his progress from February, moving past 5 players into 65th. My arch-nemesis Robin Usher made a very small cut that didn't get him anywhere near me or move him up any places, so he stayed in 91st. Mat Abernethy carried on his terrific improvement, moving up 22 places with an AF cut of nearly 20 and entering the top 100 at 97. Willem Pieters made a nice 11 point cut to move into 119th while shortcut movers George and Pat were also in action here, each up 8 places into 127th and 134th respectively. Michael Tunzi matched that 8-place jump, up into 164th, while Kevin Cook went up 3 into 171st. Tianyi Liu just broke into the top 200, jumping exactly into that 200th spot with a 9 place cut and denying Eric Tapani the chance of getting into the top 200 himself as Eric moved up 3 into 201st.

Ryan Trovillion could only move up 4 places into 215th despite his 11.5 AF cut due to a rather large gap in the rankings, but his next cut like that should take him into the top 200. Austin Gates and Aidan Foyel both made decent cuts of a similar size and moved up 15 and 17 places, Austin jumping into 230th with Aidan reaching 244th. Corey Thompson had a terrific month, flying up the charts into 256th with a 79 place, 74 AF cut but Mickael Smolen topped even that, roaring into 284th with his 91 AF cut that saw him pass 98 players! In between the two, Pete Robinson continued his more steady progress with a 7 place climb into 273rd.

Matt Gingery was another player with a sizeable cut, leaping 68 places up the charts into 321st. Oyvind Lokken went past 7 into 347th while Joseph Carpenter took advantage of some fairly clustered players to jump 42 players into 360th with a cut of 26. Nicholas Hindes passed 11 of that group with his 6 place climb into 364th. Finally, Wesley Holbrook broke into the top 500 with some conviction, moving up 38 places into 464th.

It's excellent to see a whole load of new players for March, including an impressive joining position of 205th for Derek Rogers:

Derek Rogers - 205 - Elite B
Jonathan Price - 422 - Expert C - 381 SC
Glen Stevens - 497 - Intermediate C - 259 SC
David Ciura - 513 - Intermediate B - 229 SC
Alex Griessing - 515 - Intermediate C - 235 SC
Pat Trompke - 516 - Advanced D
Stephen Hall - 578 - Apprentice A - 332 SC
Jonas Edlund - 596 - Apprentice B - 104 SC
Steven Ainsworth - 609 - Apprentice D - 321 SC

And one non-SC player joining shortcut:

Kevin Cook - 316 SC

And that's all for this update! Join me again for all of April's action...

There was big movement in the top 10 from two players: William Lacey and Vincent Tolhuis. Lacey is currently still in the gap between Marcelo Almeida dos Reis in third and Trystan Pugh in fifth but he did take a massive step towards catching Marcelo with an impressive 1.6 AF cut, improving his AF to just over 6. VAJ finally entered the top 10 in style with a 2.25 AF cut, moving himself up past 4 players into 7th and pushing past champion Sami Cetin outside the top 10. Zoran Tintor made a tiny improvement but stayed in 13th as Greg Ihnatenko moved to the brink of the top 20, passing 3 players to reach 21st. Impressively, Matthias Rustemeyer continued his phenomenal progress, making an AF cut of 9 to move up 12 places into 33rd and take the title of German Champion from Willi Rossberg! Jean-Francois Dubreuil was pushed down into 36th as a result despite making an 0.7 cut.

At the top of the shortcut charts, Greg and fellow shortcut legend Myles Bukrim were both in action. Greg improved his time on TT 3lap to get him up to 4th there while Myles made a superb WR tie on YV flap of 5'78! Each man improved 0.1 AF points and stays in 3rd and 4th respectively. Pat Bertovich continued his great start to 2009 with a further 2.3 AF cut, moving himself up another place into 18th and pushing down Brent Wingert, despite Brent making some small cuts of his own. Robert Szabo cut 4.3 AF to pass Nathan Stinson for 23rd and that man Matthias passed two more people to reach 33rd on both sides of the charts. Marcos Vinicius Alves made a cut of half a point but remained in 41st.

Back on non-SC, Marcos rose 3 places, closing in on the top 50 in 52nd. Rune Stubhaug continued to demonstrate his remarkable potential after joining in January, flying into the Legend ranks with a fantastic 19.3 AF cut to give him a 17 place move and a ranking of 66th while Brent made some more small cuts and again found himself down a place to 70th as a result! Robin Usher suffered the same fate, getting dropped to 91st by Matt Vanderwouw's 7 place rise into 85th.

Outside the top 100, Mat Abernethy had a fantastic month, slashing over 25 from his AF for a 32 place jump into 119th. Mat's PRs included a GOD time on MMF 3lap, indicating that there is a whole lot more to come from him! Johnny Hengel and Pat made decent-sized moves, up 5 and 7 places into 137th and 142nd respectively but they were overshadowed by Alex Kangas, who leapt 27 places into 152nd with his excellent 38 point AF cut. Michael Tunzi climbed 14 places with a nice 18 point cut, putting him into 172nd.

Between Michael and the next mover is a gap of almost 50 places, but Ryan Trovillion more than made up for the lack of action above him! Ryan sliced over 92 points from his AF, sending him up an incredible 89 places into 219th and reducing the gains of three other movers: Austin Gates to 245th, Aidan Foyel to 261st and Pete Robinson to 280th. Daniel Pabst was another karter having a great month, up into 311th with his 33 point cut. Mickael Smolen and Matt Gingery both made large jumps: Mickael up an impressive 49 places into 382nd; and Matt even better, up 78 into 389th. Sam Cobb could only hold on to 417th with his small cut, not far ahead of Alvaro Fababu, who flew up 70 places into 427th with his 52 cut. Finally, April Thompson made sure that the female karters were represented with her nice 24-place jump, getting her into 628th.

Two new players from February:

Johnny Helenek - Pro A - 278
Patrick Gowey - Expert D - 437

And that's all for February! The update for March will follow soon...

Three players really impressed us this year with their consistent playing and decisive movements up the charts.

Zoran Tintor continued his pace from last year. In Shortcut, he moved into the Top 10, passing legends like Booth, Whalls, Simmons, and Fried. In Non-SC, he closed in on the GOD rank and made the largest jump of our current Top 15 players. Together, these improvements have brought him into the #5 Universal spot, ahead of Ihnatenko, Penev, Cetin, and Bukrim, and just barely behind Fried for the #4 spot, establishing him as one of the top universal players in the site's history.

Marcos Vinicius Alves made the jump from the mid-Elite pack up to a very respectable Legend C, a total cut of 130 AF. He passed many of his former rivals easily, and never slowed his pace, producing quality PRs the entire year. He also rose from the bottom of the Shortcut charts up to the King ranks, showing he has the skill to get great times on both sides of the charts.

Matthias Rustemeyer joined the site in January buried deep in the sub-Elite lower ranks. Through the year he climbed quickly, never seeming to hit a bump in his PRing road as he sent in strong times in both Non-SC and Shortcut. At the end of the year he finally passed his longtime rival Marcos, reached Legend B, and entered the Top 50. In a seemingly slow year overall for the kart site, Matthias demonstrated the activity and dedication of a player always looking to be better, and ended up with a great rank to show for it.

For his consistent activity and defeating everyone who challenged him this year, Matthias Rustemeyer is the Player of the Year. Congratulations!

Let's go 2009!

At the top of the charts, Michael Jongerius improved his own KD flap WR, dropping it to a 39"18! William Lacey cemented his position as world number four with an AF cut of 0.344. William landed some PRs on KD and FS, including a superb second place double on KD! He still has over 3 AF points to cut to get to Marcelo Almeida dos Reis, however. Not far behind, two of MK64's rising superstars continued their march towards the top 10. 2006 Player of the Year Vincent Tolhuis and 2007 Player of the Year Zoran Tintor each moved up a place to 11th and 13th respectively, Luke Barnard and Jamie White finding themselves knocked down a spot. Kart legend Sami Cetin now finds himself on the brink of falling out of the top 10; Vincent needs less than 2 AF to pass him. Plenty of English activity was taking place on the charts: Greg Ihnatenko went up a place, passing Thomas Grandjean for 24th, Glyn Valentine made some small cuts but stayed in 32nd and John Santamaria cut 4 from his AF to rise two places into 39th. In the midst of that, no. 29 Finn Berger didn't make an AF cut overall but he did improve his KD time enough to move slightly closer to Myles Bukrim. The final mover inside the top 50 was Matthias Rustemeyer, continuing his excellent progress by passing 3 more players to reach 45th.

Over on SC, Zoran remains stuck in no-man's-land between 7th and 9th, remaining in 8th despite cutting another 0.3 from his AF. Pat Bertovich made a great start to 2009, cutting 2.2 from his AF to move into the top 20, tying Matthew Little for 19th. Robert Szabo made a small cut but stayed in 24th while Matthias maintained his impressive streak of activity by moving up a place to 35th. Vincent Zee made a comeback to kart with a 10 place climb, rising to 72nd. Johnny Hengel passed 12 players to reach 136th and AAA member Matt Nissenbaum made an AF cut of nearly 5 to move 10 places into 165th. Finally, Tyler Chambers moved up a place into 167th with the smallest possible cut.

Back on non-SC, Marcos Vinicius Alves went up a place into 55th with some small cuts and just behind him, the most talented MK64 news writer (that's Darius Austin) cut almost 2.5 from his AF...but stayed in 59th. Matt got three places closer to his old rival, moving up into 72nd. An astounding amount of progress was made by new player Rune Stubhaug, who joined the site and made it up to 83rd by the end of January! Matt Vanderwouw also made a superb cut, slashing nearly 50 points to move up 57 places and break the top 100 at 92. Johnny made cuts on both sides of the charts, up two places into 142nd and Mat Abernethy smashed a bunch of PRs, flying up 60 places into 151st with a 67 cut. Kevin McAteer went up 7 places into 161st and Timothy Klebetz held onto 177th with some small cuts. Alex Kangas managed to top both Matt and Mat with a huge 90 point cut, allowing him to make an 84 place leap into 179th! Tim Gaulthier's cut looked small by comparison but still gave him an excellent month, up 47 places into 198th with a cut of nearly 52.

Aidan Foyel climbed a handy 25 places to get into 264th and just when you thought we'd seen the biggest cut of the month, Pete Robinson beat the other contenders by some margin! Pete had a gigantic 137 point cut, sending him up a whopping 163 places into 287th. Tyler also moved up 25 places into 305th and Arturo Campano jumped 40 places to 402nd with a cut of almost 30. Dave Muilenberg had an even better month, slicing 39 from his AF to go up 52 places into 454th while William Kelly rose 4 places into 582nd. Finally, Tingshian Wu climbed 18 to 617th with an 11 point cut.

New players for January:

Rune Stubhaug - 83 - King A
Ryan Trovillion - 308 - Pro D
Jordan Jacobs - 574 - Intermediate F - 216 SC

And that's all for January! Join me again shortly to see if MJ can grab yet more WRs, Lacey can close the gap on Marcelo and VAJ can take down Sami, plus much more!

Long-reigning MK64 world champion Michael Jongerius stunned the kart world once again as he took two more world records to add to his massive collection! The first was the BC 3lap WR, first tying William Lacey's record from earlier in 2008 before beating it by 0"13 with a time of 2'12"90 (1'50"53). Not content with taking just one of Lacey's records, MJ proceeded to claim the DKJP flap WR with a 42"60 (35"43), an improvement of 0"04 on Lacey's time. Shortcut master Greg Ihnatenko rounded off a good year on both sides of the charts with an AF improvement of a point, taking him past Mike Simmons into 25th. Fellow Englishman John Santamaria climbed three places into 41st, passing Nathan Stinson, Richard Karlsson and Steven Gutierrez. Matthias Rustemeyer rounded off a phenomenal year by making a 12 point AF cut that brought him up another 10 places and into the top 50 at 48! Matthias joined the site outside the top 300 in January so to reach the top 50 is a superb achievement.

Over on SC, we find another man who had a fantastic 2008: Marcos Vinicius Alves. He leapt up to 41st with a 10 place climb and was one of only two players in the top 100 who improved their AF. The other was Patrick Hewson, who moved up 5 places into 89th with a 3.5 AF cut. Olivier Aeby demonstrated the ease of moving up the lower reaches of the SC charts where incomplete timesets are in abundance: he flew up 132 places with a 22.5 AF cut.

Back on non-SC, Marcos still moved up a place despite finally being passed by Matthias, rising into 56th. Nicola Gatti comfortably achieved his goal of being Champion of Italy, surging past old champion Iacopo Sorce and all the way up into 73rd, becoming Legend in the process! Matt Nissenbaum landed right on the Legend barrier with his very last PRs of the year, also moving up two places into 75th despite being passed by Nicola. Robin Usher made a small improvement to move up a place into 89th, still lagging well behind rivals Matt and Darius Austin :P

A flurry of activity hit the charts around the 150 mark as Matt Vanderwouw, Karel van Duijvenboden and Ryan White all made sizeable improvements. Matt broke into the top 150 with a 30 point AF cut, reaching 149th, Karel rose to 154th with a slightly smaller cut of 27.5 and Ryan made a very impressive 52 place jump with an AF cut of over 50 to close in on Karel in 157th. Timothy Klebetz made a return with a small cut that still moved him up two places into 177th while Michael Tunzi broke into the top 200 in style with a 22.5 AF cut, sending him into 183rd. Mat Abernethy topped Ryan's cut with an improvement of almost 67 AF, launching him into 211th. Markus Hobelsberger still went up 3 places into 221st despite being passed by Mat.

By far the most impressive cut of the month came from Alex Kangas: he fell just short of a gigantic 200 AF cut, moving him up a colossal 228 places into 263rd after barely being inside the top 500 at the start of December! Aidan Foyel's 35 place improvement looked tiny by comparison but it still put Aidan inside the top 300 at 289. Daniel Pabst also moved up 35 places, finishing 2008 in 342nd. Joseph Carpenter broke the top 400 barrier with his cut of just over 20, rising to 396th. Pete Robinson slashed 58 from his AF to jump 82 places into 450th and yet another player was breaking a barrier; this time the top 500, Alvaro Fababu climbing 50 places to reach 494th. William Kelly went up 6 places into 586th and Eric Taverna also managed to climb 6 places into 659th despite his AF getting worse.

A whole load of new players from December:

Tyler Chambers - 330 - 168 SC
Mickael Smolen - 427
Arturo Campano - 442 - 326 SC
Dave Muilenberg - 506
Brendan Santin - 554
Patrick Schiering - 563
Mike Davies - 564
Simon Theodor - 622
Tommy Gelinas - 643
Peter Szkolnik - 651
Miles Sollinger - 679

And one current player joining the shortcut charts:

Alvaro Fababu - 384 SC

That's all for December! Join me again soon for all the action from the first month of 2009...

Other than that, all the awards for the year are posted, including the "missing" ones from earlier in the year. Thanks to all the cool people who continued playing this great game in 2008 even with the release of another new Mario Kart, and congratulations to those of you who stood out enough to capture an award. Keep it coming in 2009!

Up at the top of the charts, William Lacey made a move to tie 4th-placed Trystan Pugh for AF, cutting three-quarters of a point with PRs on CM, SL and RRd. He also pushed Jeffrey Gutierrez down to 6th in the process. Worst GOD ever Cooper Lovera also played RRd 3lap to move himself up a single place on that chart. He remains in 20th. Not too far behind Cooper, Myles Bukrim passed compatriot Josh Layne for 27th and Finn Berger moved slightly closer to Josh with a small cut of his own. The most impressive action by far, however, was that of Glyn Valentine. Glyn cut 12 from his AF to move up 14 places into 33rd and hit a number of impressive times to improve to Legend A overall! Will Glyn's potential carry him to his goal of overthrowing world champion Michael Jongerius?

Outside the top 50, the battle between Marcos Vinicius Alves and Matthias Rustemeyer raged on as both men made almost exactly the same cut of 3.5 to each move up 3 places into 57th and 58th respectively. Lifelong AAA member Matt Nissenbaum moved up 4 places into 77th to close in on the Legend ranks and get nearer to his nemesis Darius Austin. Christophe Tremblay continued his progress to tie Marc Pouget for 111th while Guilherme Arantes made some small cuts but remained in 173. Special mention must go to SMK legend Karel van Duijvenboden, who finally joined the MK64 site in November and made it all the way to 175th with his first set of times!

Over on SC, two men in the top 10 made exactly the same improvment. Myles and Zoran Tintor both cut 0.4 from their AF but both remained in the same position: Myles in 4th and Zoran in 8th. Matthias passed two more players to move up to 36th and Marcos closed in on the top 50 with a cut of almost 10 to reach 51st. Lucas Marquardt made an awesome 77 place leap with his 49 AF cut that got him to 109th.

Back on non-SC, Austin Gates made some small cuts to reach 254th, getting spectacularly overshadowed by Mat Abernethy, who made an absolutely colossal cut of nearly 168 AF! Mat's 191 place jump saw him fly all the way up to 268th after joining in October. Aiden Foyel cut 14.5 to rise 10 places into 324th and Daniel Pabst climbed an excellent 49 places to pass fellow German Marvin Mester for 377th. Juan Choque was another new player making some great progress, slashing 60 from his AF to reach 408th with a 77 place jump. Tim Stoll nearly made it into the top 500 with a 23 place climb, ending up just outside at 501. Kristopher Lamp went up 7 places to 522nd and Pete Robinson doubled that with a 14 place rise into 532nd.

Plenty of new players for November:

Karel van Duijvenboden - 175 - Elite A
Matt Gingery - 460 - Advanced A
Lucas Marquardt - 476 - Intermediate C
Alex Kangas - 491 - Advanced F
Melanie Jones McMillan - 630 - Beginner D
Nicola Strogieri - 639 - Newbie A
William O'Brien - 645 - Newbie D
Kyle Labelle - 662 - Newbie D - 280 SC
Eric Taverna - Newbie D - 665

And one shortcut only player:

Olivier Aeby - 360 SC

And that's all for November! Watch out for the December update, soon to follow...