Jason Whalls

Jason Whalls is remembered as one of the pioneers of Mario Kart 64, being the second member (after Kevin Booth) to have his times listed on the page. Along with Andy Launspach, Kevin Booth and Jason Engel, Jason was one of the Feared 4 in Mario Kart 64 in 1997.

He was an all-rounder player, skilled in both Shortcut and Non-Shortcut. Some of his best known marks included Banshee Boardwalk 1'45"39 (a Top 10 nomination), some really old Frappe Snowland lap WRs, and way too many shortcuts (YV SC).

Jason is perhaps closest to Kevin Booth and Louis-Philippe Sabbagh than any community members, and the trio goes back to at least 1997. In earlier days, they competed at Andy's site, one of the first time trial sites. Kevin later took over, and founded the Player's Page. In those early days, Jason spent most of his web-time in the Mario Kart IRC chatroom--braving the deficiencies of WebTV (he could not use AIM)--and shared many laughs and coming-of-age enlightening conversations with Kevin, Louis, Alex Penev, Mark Jones, Michael Fried, William Lacey, Olga the Cow, and others. Jason was Kevin's SVP, and many considered him the most-suitable for creating side-projects for the community. He was a well-respected member for his high ranking and sense of humour, and is fondly remembered for his Kart Bible (Kart = Chicks), several reincarnations of the Fake Chat, and Iacopuff.

Jason was one of the first Mario Kart players to create an online profile. He once modestly credited Alex as being the first to make profiles look good, but some consider Jason to be the first to have an interesting profile, with more content on it than just numbers in a table. Many people followed suit, and updated their own off-site profiles in their own style, with personal content. Profiles are now a typical feature of all the Mario Kart sites, but as many of them are automated, they contain very little personal information.

Apart from MK64, Jason has also played Super Mario Kart (where he held many NTSC records in 2000/2001), and Mario Kart Super Circuit (where he held many records in 2002) in the series. Jason plays many genres of games (all the way from Chrono Cross to Far Cry), but he usually competed for high-scores in games that Kevin or Louis were also involved with. Jason was a regular at N64HS, and has/had records in Mario Golf, Super Mario 64 and Wave Race 64, among others. He won a Nintendo tournament for Mario Golf soon after the game came out, and has been listed in Twin Galaxies for Wave Race competition. Jason was also one of the pioneers of Diddy Kong Racing time trialing, and along with Kevin (who started a DKR page), Jason was a top-ranked player for years (fighting against Louis).

Some interesting trivia about Jason is that he has a dog, Ben, he and Kevin once shared tied records on both lap and 3lap on Royal Raceway (a poignant moment in the history of MK64), he listens to Soundgarden and Beastie Boys, and is known to quote George Carlin on occasion.

Jason was significantly involved with the Karter Contest 2004, but he no longer signs on AIM and has not kept contact with most of the community due to his (and Louis's) addiction to World of Warcraft. Those two might come back some day, when they realise that WoW =/= Chicks.

External Links

• 'The Kart Bible'
• Fake Chat #2: 'AImIRC Strikes Back'
• Fake Chat #3: 'The Life of a Kart Historian'
• Historical list of SMK Records

• Jason's Profile: the famous spinning-skull version
• Jason's Profile: condensed version
• Jason's Profile: very ancient

• Twin Galaxies newletter: Wave Race. (Here, Jason fends off Matt Leto and Louis).
• Twin Galaxies newletter: DKR. (More of the above)