Gentlemen, start your engines

On Christmas Day 2013 — 21 years after UK gamers received Super Mario Kart for the SNES — a great Time Trial World Record barrier was broken. The person who achieved this feat is none other than current UK Champion Sami Cetin, who is currently ranked 2nd overall Worldwide on the PAL version of the game has been hard at work on his Mario Circuit 1 World Record, which is so good it granted him entry to the Guinness World Records Gamers Edition 2012 as well as the main edition of the 2013 version of the record-keeping book.

Cetin and his competitors drive this course using high level boosting strategies — discovered by Japanese players in the 1990s — to help cut a lot of time off the track. His previous time of 58.34 seconds was already pretty amazing, but he already lowered it to an astonishing 58.06 seconds this autumn. On the 25th December — just after midnight, in fact — he earned himself a nice Christmas present by being the first player on Earth to break the 58 second barrier on the PAL version of the game with an epic new World Record of 57.90 seconds.

To mark this momentous occasion, Cetin has recorded his record-breaking lap:

It is amazing to see World Records being broken on the original Super Mario Kart despite its distinguished age; many believe it has some of the best driving mechanics for great Time Trial competition. Cetin hasn't gone without competition though — his main rival Guillaume Leviach of France holds 17 PAL World Records against Cetin's 13 and both are continually improving to reach new targets on this classic game. Karel van Duijvenboden of the Netherlands — who is currently ranked 3rd overall on PAL and 1st on the NTSC version of the game — also holds several records across the tracks. Each year there are official Super Mario Kart World Championships held annually in France and all the players around the World meet up to race for Trophies, medals, and Nintendo prizes.

Cetin also trains with his niece Leyla Hasso who is the fastest female player in the World for Super Mario Kart SNES — as was officially recorded in Guinness World Records 2013 Gamer's Edition and the 2014 main edition of the book.

Mario Kart 8 is due for release on the Wii U in 2014 and judging by the activity in Super Mario Kart SNES and all the subsequent versions up to Mario Kart 7, we are sure to see some great Time Trial competition happening in the new sequel as well.