Sami Cetin

Sami Cetin

Introduction

Sami Cetin is founder and webmaster of the Super Mario Kart (SMK) Time Trial World Records Site for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System SNES. He was the chief times and news updater of the community webpage on Geocities for over since November 1998, and continues this job on the 2006 reincarnation of the site. Sami is a moderator of the SMK forum and a popular member of the kart community, placing 4th in the 2004 Karter Contest and winning the 2006 Contest over Alex Penev. His dedication and long-service to Super Mario Kart have earned him the title 'Godfather of SMK'.

Now ranked 3rd on the PAL Time Trial Rankings, he was a former World Champion in Super Mario Kart between September 1998 to April 2004 (at one time holding all 40 WRs). Sami has however retained his title as the Champion of the UK on Time Trial, also including Match Race and Grand Prix modes of SMK. He was also the first player globally to reach the famous 1'00"99 mark on Mario Circuit 1 with Non-NBT driving.

Sami's SMK Career & development of the Super Mario Kart Time Trial World Records Site

Sami Cetin first played Super Mario Kart following Christmas 1992 and his skills developed very quickly into 1993. During this time he realised very early the correct driving techniques with D.K.Jr to enable him to approach corners with perfect lining up in order to achieve fast times. He started off playing on Grand Prix mode during the first years mainly as the faster speed allowed him to test his skills on reaction time. Although the Internet age would not be popular until some years later, Sami felt he would have been a fast player, however he had little competition at the time.

On the 29th March 1994, it was his father's birthday and several friends and family visited Sami's home. During this time Sami felt it would be a good occasion to organise Super Mario Kart Tournament between the family friends that were attending. 8 players were gathered for a Match Race tournament and were organised into the brackets for single match races. As most of the players were on a beginner to intermediate level at the time it was kept only to Mushroom Cup courses. The participants included Sami's brother Hakan, sister Ayla, cousin Esra, friend Jonathan Cem Pulleine (later ranked on the Time Trial site) and 3 more friends of the family. The Semi-Finals saw a face off between Sami and one of the players with Sami reaching the final. Hakan did really well in his Semi-Final but was overtaken by Cem. The final took place on Mario Circuit 2 with Sami having a bad start after being hit by Cem's red shell. Sami made a comeback in the last lap with a Mushroom to win the Tournament that day. He did not participate in a similar Tournament again until 2006.

During 1994 Sami continued to improves his speed and skills on Grand Prix mode including noting some of his records there on paper to track his progress.

- TO BE COMPLETED

Super Mario Kart meets

Sami has attended several meetings involving Super Mario Kart, including local UK meets that him and local gamers including his old friends helped to organise. During 2006 a few meetings took place in the UK, including a World Meet between 6th July to 12th July where Dutch, French and Norwegian SMK players visited London. Sami was able to win at Match Races on SMK vs the players except for a loss to the French Champion, SMK Time Trial #2 Pierre L'Hoëst. In March 2007, Sami and several other SMK players from the UK, Netherlands and Switzerland visited Paris for a great games meeting where several high ranked French SMK players also attended. Sami was able to win match race against 11 more players with one more loss to Pierre on a rematch. He is looking forward to more SMK Meets in the near future and he enjoys meeting the players on the site who have been active there for many years.

Involvement in other Mario Kart games

Sami's prowess extends to the other kart games, and he is one of the best all-round Mario Kart players: currently ranking in 2nd in the Combined Mario Kart Rankings after a brief period in 1st place. He was formerly world champion in Mario Kart 64, where he had many impressive WRs and broke milestone barriers such as WS 3lap in which he got 3:39.99. He was also world champion of Mario Kart Super Circuit for the first few months of competition including taking many former World Records during a visit to Germany in early 2002 before retiring from Mario Kart Super Circuit. He has spent a bit of time on Mario Kart Double Dash and a little more on Mario Kart DS. He competed on Mario Kart DS becoming UK Champion during the start of 2007 but retired within a few months to make a return to Super Mario Kart.

External Links

• Sami's SMK profile
• Sami's MKSC profile
• Sami's MKDS profile
• Sami's MKDD profile