@Kobeskillz Its strange how they made so many small differences but noticeable when racing. I guess I really wish there could have just been one version so we don't need two separate rankings. But alas, it was not meant to be with the tv systems and technology at the time...

@Kobeskillz Actually the NTSC version has a lot of flaws, getting round some hairpin turns and executing certain moves, plus some additional shortcut ability which can end races too soon on some tracks. I compete in some records for NTSC but PAL is my primary mode and where all the UK rankings can be properly compared with it's widespread number of players. The speed difference is actually very small as PAL SMK was reprogrammed. The World Championships are always done on PAL too and we are used to the mechanics. We did attempt a short NTSC competition on console at the 2012 edition, the results were a bit random and the Time Trial one try competition saw a lot of missed zoom starts by everyone

@Danrenfroe2016 Thank you; not to a high level, only very briefly tried them for fun. I used to do records on Mario Kart 64 around 12-13 years ago, and Mario Kart Super Circuit on the GBA, plus a brief adventure on MKDS until PRB was discovered and mastered. By 2006 I had to return to SMK as I only really had time to focus on one version, plus this was the strongest one; and the World Championships on the SNES version were picking up by this stage.

@PinkSpider There are mini turbos in Super Mario Kart SNES much like those in all the other mario karts. If you look carefully you can see after i jump on a road the kart vibrates left-right-left-right very fast, if done well this can charge a boost then countersteer jump off road. An easy way to test this if you havent done before is do a powerslide holding R around the final corner of Donut Plains 1 then counter steering to release the boost, you will cut some grass without slowdown. The standard boost happens when you powerslide holding R round any hairpin turn, when you countersteer to straighten up at the end the engine sound goes up a moment and you get a little extra speed. This is the boost i am speaking about which you will have had many times im sure. It is just about executing it off road. Mario Circuit 1 is a tough one to get it right on as there is not much time to be saved there unless it is executed perfectly. The best option is to drive the classic way first hopping sharp around the corners, you can still get sub minute that way (i have a 59"49 video of this, let me know if you want to see it), then learn the off road boosting after that. Regards, Sami

I would really like a SNES D.K.Jr + kart for a future DLC.

B Dasher will be interesting, shame it wasn't a strong kart in MKDS.

Best of luck to Daniel "WYLD-WOO" Harris

Best of luck to all the contenders! Shout out for Stacy Needham and James Leare I will pop round in the late afternoon at EGX (Saturday) after finishing running a SNES Super Mario Kart Tournament at the Replay stand for the visitors. Lets all have a catchup then

Wishing @Sarger001 the best of luck. Will have a catch up with you guys in the late afternoon there.

@Gridatttack Yes that is correct; the game features 8 of the guys from the championships as the players and then I come in at the end to hand out the trophy. It was made in 2009 and a limited 39 copies were made around the globe. Only 6 exist in the UK.

@Chaos_Eevee Lets be positive and hope it all goes ok I'm sure the week will go smoothly and lots of stories to tell after.

@Luigifan141 No probs, please feel free to ask and will do my best to answer. Not in the exact same format but there have been discussions to do a joint one with Mario Kart 64 some day. However getting it all done in a week and keeping it as thorough as this in order to draw out accurate results, plus equipment etc will be tricky. There was a Mario Kart 64 meet in Europe last month I believe which a number of people I know attended. There were some form of competitions on different modes but I am not sure of the format. Thee mechanics of the game is very different to the snes with too many random factors on the multiplayer modes. We done a 64 tournament in Norway in 2007 and the results did not match those of the time trial ranking. For the other Mario Kart games I think smaller communities Nationally may arrange some things but not to this scale. It is for the time being the only retro Mario Kart that has a sponsoring by Nintendo of France and has been running every year since 2002. It started off as a French championship then eventually upgraded to Worldwide in 2008/2009. We have had players from Japan and Brazil in previous years and looking to get more of these guys back again next year. A lot of competitors have other commitments, job, family etc so they can't fly 12 hours to reach this every year but it is really nice to see them whenever they can do The friendships we make out of these meetings are definitely the best part. Lots of photos will go up on Facebook after we are back

@Luigifan141 For the SNES there are hundreds on the time trial world rankings website and we are linked up with the other karts too which are also huge. The snes championships are growing each year. Check this out from Tuesday night and Wednesday onwards.

@AyeHaley No there are a lot of people sitting around the webcam as well not in view. Or if it was the time trials some had popped our for the time. Last year's event had about 35 competitors. There will be more this year. The hall does actually have capacity for hundreds, but that's a good thing, more space the better, considering the summer and the heat.

@KevTastic84 It is fair that some still prefer NTSC over PAL and that's cool. There are some mechanics that are good on NTSC, but mainly it is more forgiving on some off road sections. Some of the water tracks in particular make a difference. We did try an NTSC tournament in the 2012 championships as an extra special due to the 20th anniversary, the zoom starts were awful in the Time Trial one try, i didn't participate in that, but it was hilarious to watch

@unrandomsam
Super Mario Kart's PAL version has better turning mechanics, trust me fast enough speed can be made on this beast, just need to use the right characters. There will be some great action there this August on the twitch channel at the World Championships.

@JamieO Much appreciated Jamie, was great catching up with you and sharing some of the techniques at Play Blackpool. You have my card still yes? Please drop me an email to my yahoo on there then we can discuss the other projects / write-ups offline. Thanks again.

By the way here are my two new World Record improvements which I set at Play Blackpool this weekend:

NTSC Ghost Valley 3 5-lap: 1'12"27*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iTX3S4rUcE

NTSC Ghost Valley 3 1-lap: 0'14"28*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_xBJCA8lFY

@Jazzer94 Yep CRT will be the best option... zero lag.

@WiiLovePeace

Hopefully will get some news up nearer the time with a reminder of the twitch link so people can watch during the week it happens

@Jazzer94
If you want to join the Time Trials, play on either a snes or the original wii vc. SNES preferred.

@KevTastic84
There'll be some news on this soon

@Kobeskillz No it is only marginally slower, like a second or two on a total track time. I feel the turn angles are better, but it is argued to be harder where the off road slowdown is worse and the length of the jumps is shorter making platforms harder to reach. But all in all it is similar difficulty, we do the championships in PAL as it is the home version for Europe. Plus most people play that by default. Though many of us have NTSC snes's as well and compete on both. Which leads on to my next comment...

@Excep7ional

Cheers mate, would be great if you got involved in the time trial and racing scene. Play BP has been good so far, some casual racing and record demonstrations tomorrow probably. Then got to prepare for August's world championship pretty much. Keep me posted on FB / twitter when you will do a time trial set on a snes and plans to do any racing.

@Excep7ional Yep the Championships are a big thing now and hoping to grow, check out the related articles as they have been put up recently. More news on the World Championships soon.

All: Much appreciated for the rest of the comments, if you have any further questions please feel free to ask.

@Blue-Thunder
It would be great if it was made. Multiplayer is possible via emulators online however many people round the world meet up to play vs on the classic SNES SMK. The world championships are a yearly event where it all happens. You can read about it here : http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2014/03/feature_a_look_at_the_super_mario_kart_snes_world_championship_2014

Will enjoy Time Trialing this one like the original The technicality of it was great, especially hopping over the last corner tight by the wall.

@arizvega Hiya, do you have a SNES + SMK, would you be keen to join in some competition for either Time Trial / Multiplayer or both?

@JamieO Yeh it does go quite deep. Since the magazines in 1992 / 1993 most people wrote the same things; the black borders being the first. Then "omg PAL is way too slow", and put a sticker on it straight away saying "I don't like it". Most people will be used to the versions they grew up with. The game has a lot of technical differences that do come into play as explained above. Definitely for Time Trialing most of the tracks the PAL feels more real for me, NTSC seems to slip off. I really wish they had the ability back then even with the 50hz / 60hz TV system difference to have made one generic version for the world, then we could all really compare times on one list. As a result we have separate PAL and NTSC rankings, and those from PAL who wanted to give NTSC a shot or vice versa can order an import console and try the other system. For the UK players as an example, pretty much everyone competes on PAL so if you wanted to know your true UK rank it would be best to try there, we have a number of the top players having competed on NTSC but there isn't as extensive a list to compare to. Fun to see where you rank regionally as well or in your local town / city

@remivir @Andyliini @mandlecreed @JamieO

The PAL version was reprogrammed as it would have been way too slow with the 17% difference. They also adjusted the mechanics a little. However I have to say I don't like the turn angles on NTSC. It is more sluggish on some of the later tracks whereas the PAL one is better for fine tuning. Also NTSC has some extra shortcuts which are more extreme and easier to hit but also cut too much off the tracks. Donut Plains courses are an example. Getting round hairpins on MC4 and DP3 on NTSC 150cc are a nuisance, whereas you can do it on PAL. There is better dodging ability on PAL for red shells, however that can be both an advantage and disadvantage depending what you prefer. Longboosting is too aggressive to get round some corners with the shrooms on NTSC and worst of all, the mini turbo length on NTSC is too short in distance! PAL is longer and helps cut across the amount of dirt to you want to The boost starts are a nuisance on PAL but awful on NTSC, we done a few small NTSC tournaments in 2012 and it was frustrating experience for everyone, thankfully I didn't take part in the Time Trial section of that Theres lots more but il post that later as I remember it.

@luke17 This does have online competition, via the use of emulators. There are also yearly World Championships, check out this article: http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2014/03/feature_a_look_at_the_super_mario_kart_snes_world_championship_2014

@ledreppe Cool mate cheers, looking forward to hear from you with your full timeset soon

@PachterStation Probably harder for us to see as weve played it semi regularly through the years. But it is technically better for tournaments as the item probabilities are not over-done and you can see much closer edge to edge racing between close ranked players that aren't decided by the usual blue shells and lightnings.

@MadJay1664 We do have some UK Super Mario Kart SNES meets from time to time in London, let me know if you are keen to attend any.

@ledreppe Great to hear you are taking part, are you playing on a snes btw? Currently the Wii U version has a save state ability apparently which renders it like an emulator. Please make sure you are doing the timeset on snes console. And don't worry about your initial level, there are a wide range of players on there, tonnes to compete with on wherever you enter plus easy to improve when we show you some routes on a few vids. Looking forward to hear from you.

@NikkiChu Thank you for your post
To answer your questions, we both use either D.K.Jr or Bowser as they have identical stats. Normally we have a favorite for time trial. For racing we don't mind using either.
We have had some more female competitors in the last few years, and another joined from the UK last year. 2012 edition had a couple of ladies from France join with their partners.
Training... short bursts and semi regularly works best. We have a lot of commitments including work and family so that must come first. But we mix up Time Trial and multiplayer training to keep it balanced. I think in the last week or two before the World Championships a lot of the players have some mini meets to practice together.

Hope that helps

@MarkS27 Keen to attend one of these?

@xj0462 It is a 2D game, but because of the clever invention of Mode 7 graphics it gives the look of a 3D racer when you are driving. Very clever as it has tricked us into asking why the walls are flat, and things like that. The kart only pivots on the spot or moves up with jumps / items.

@James1993 It would be great, not sure if it will be done at least yet but we hope. But you don't need to wait for that if you want to try online racing. Get a snes to PC usp adaptor on ebay and you can compete on SNESOT via Hamachi. Can be set up to race quickly. Are you UK / London based? As per your first post asking if there is UK competition... we can organise something locally very easily vs one of the Top 5-10 players in the UK. They are ready when you are for some new competition

@James1993 Although it is not as smooth as on a CRT TV it is possible to race online via emulators. Other than that, do get involved on the Time Trials site listed in the article, as that you can do from home if you have a snes /smk and can record some replays of your records. Easy to do.

@Nintenjoe64 I don't have a Wii U, but a good friend of mine has one, I have only had a brief go on it so far. Ooh Mario Kart Wii, it is the one I played the least of the series, and I have barely touched it since 2010. Even before then probably a few goes on all the tracks. Funny you mentioned the retro MC3 track though as it is one of a few that I could get into as well. I have a very old time on the site which I did beat some years ago on a random go but don't seem to have posted so I may have to dig it out. It is probably at least 1'20" - 1'21 now. The UK record is 1'18"425; and World Record is still 1'18"107 held by a gentleman in USA.

@Luigifan141 Hi there, in the original SNES, Donkey Kong Jr, although Bowser is identical on driving stats. So normally using one or the other in a race is fine.

@VolcanoFlames Great to hear you are keen to take part This event is exclusively for Super Mario Kart SNES, however a lot of the competitors are also World Ranked on some of the other Mario Kart games so there will be an opportunity to have some races vs them on the side. I am sure a handful of the guys will give Mario Kart 8 a whirl when it is released but more for fun. We are linked up with a lot of guys who will do Time Trials in MK8 though. I think Nintendo of France will eventually give some of these items out as prizes, we don't have any conformation yet though as this info usually appears nearer the summer.

@James1993 You may be pleased to know that a number of the Top UK Super Mario Kart SNES players have meets in London from time to time. We did host a UK championship in South London four years ago which was good but haven't organised one since as we normally put our energy and focus into making the Worldwide event the best it can be. A lot of players are planning to visit in the next years from other continents, so remember that France is very near for us too Aside from that if you have a SNES on the go, you can join us on the Time Trial World Rankings, plenty of fun competition on there vs the globe.

@JamieO Yes there are off road boosting techniques that the Japanese players discovered many years ago. It is basically the same as the turbo powerslides you do in all of the other Mario Kart games. Have you played Super Circuit on GBA? Exactly same as when you get the blue spark out + boost except it is hidden a bit more as they couldnt animate the graphic back then. We enjoy a number of tracks. Vanilla Lake 2 is a favorite also, Leyla's video is on there as another example, she has improved it to 51 seconds since. With the times you said you have hit you would be a good contender at an event like this. Each year we take wide spread of skill level as there will also be the same at the event; there are people for everyone to compete with.

@fluggy It would need to be rebuilt from scratch probably, i heard some years ago that someone out there was testing something out with a rom but it never came to be in the end. Nothing beats the original handling though.

@JamieO and everyone, you may have seen already, an article has just gone up regarding the Super Mario Kart (SNES) World Championship 2014. A huge yearly event, something you would definitely enjoy being a part of If you have any questions feel free to ask me there.

Sami Cetin

Hi everyone,

Just a note; I will be around for any Questions and Answers regarding the Championships, so please let me know.

Best Regards,

Sami Cetin

Hi guys, just watched our interviews on there. As mentioned, the game was in early demo stages at this point, so there will probably be lots of surprises.

@ledreppe If you are keen on Time Trialing for Super Mario Kart SNES please let me know. Always solid on original consoles; we have a Time Trial World Rankings website plus Official World Championships held annually in France. So the original game is widely active

It was a very good choice, and as Lobster says, there are different ones at other events so there is an even spread over the long term. I had a few friends doing some speed running there, was great to watch on twitch, wish i was there tho!

@Damo
Il see what I can do regarding finding any candidates. Will it be just on the original GB platform or is the VC download one on the 3DS a viable option aswell? Might be worth listing the options and how the validation process must be done (e.g live recording as there is no replay option etc).

I have a few friends that may be keen on this, will make some enquiries.

@chibichibi @WiiLovePeace
No the lap splits are not possible to get 4 lots of 11"23. That is the final lap strategy, which is faster as you finish in the sand, and the kart would slow down just after where the finish line is. So there is an opener lap which can be done just under 12 at max, then middle laps which are in the high 11"4x to low 11"5x and the fast lap for the final lap only which at the moment World Record is 11"23. The max potential is nearer a mid 57 but the zig zag charges to generate boosts makes it extremely difficult to stay on the shortest racing line as well.