After two months of intense competition run on "ten new tracks" this year's Guitar Bill "Expo" and "Tournaments" have finally come to a close. On the racing front, I'm happy to report that Drive2Survive came out on top for the second consecutive year. Way to go Drive2Survive!

Hot on Drive2Survive's tail was Fila, who finished with the most first place wins and he closed out third in the points race. Honorable mention goes to Jammer who was breathing down everybody's back the entire time and who finished with a very respectable fourth overall. Congratulations to the winners and thanks to all twenty-six racers who took part over the past two months.

On the track making side of things, we saw some real gems made for the tourney. "February" saw four very different tracks created by makers Onan, Cale, Mat-Allum and OLD_Mumhra. There were also two "Rumbles" in February, one by Onan and another by Kmaster. At the beginning of festivities back at the start of February, we had two additional tracks and planned to extend the tourney past the end of the month, but along came late bloomers FoXx and Fila whose tracks (Shawnee Forest and Small Whiskey), along with "Vulture Peak," made by the man himself, rounded out "March" as good as anybody could have wanted.

Before leaving off for today I'd like to a give a big round of applause to MTM2's unsung graphic artist "OLD_MacRobby Jedi" who has been creating original, great-looking, unique track and trophy graphics for our tournaments for going on three years now. Yes, he made all the track graphics for the tourneys, the winners banners like above and a track banner for all makers like the one below. Please take a few moments to see his "current and past work here", and by all means drop him a note of thanks when you get a moment.

The long awaited results of the Guitar Bill expo are now out. There were eight new tracks made to honor bill, with one more pending and another rumored to be on the way. Each of the tracks are very different from the others and they all should make for a challenging month of racing. Month? Well, since the turn-out was very good, our tribute to Bill will spill over into March too.

All the circuit/rally race-style tracks will be run during ShadowPrincess' Saturday afternoon tournaments, and you can expect to see all the new work by makers including: ONaN, Cale, Mat-Allum, OLD_Mumhra, Malibu350 and yours truly. Full details can be found "here for February" and "here for March."

In addition, two rumbles were created for Guitar Bill month. These were made by Kmaster and ONaN and they will be run during Thursday night Rumble tourneys. The first rumble will take place on February 7th, and the second will happen on February 21st. Full details can be found "here."

I hope you all can come on out and have some fun.

As we stand on the eve of another new year I want to take a moment to reflect on the events of the past year and profer thanks and expressions of appreciation to those who have helped make this year one of mtm's most successful to date. Notable among the many happenings is that we saw a 54% increase in track production over the past two years, and we saw a 75% increase in truck production over last year. Not bad, eh? Especially when you consider that dooms-dayers and nay-sayers were forecasting mtm's demise as far back as 1998. Yet, here we are ten years after and there is still a healthy mtm presence on the internet.

A remarkable feat, no? Well, sure, in some gaming circles that's unheard of, but anybody in the mtm loop knows it's no accident: not only are we dealing with the most versatile, most customizable game that's ever been created but it's also supported by some of the most creative, most inventive, hardest working, most diligent and dedicated people any game or hobby has ever seen - EVER! It's hard to list everything and everybody who have contributed to our game this year, but let's see if I can take a stab at it.

At the top of the list has to be our very own Drive2Survive. It would be unfair not to give honorable mention to knarf but wgc was not the least bit cooperative and as a result his work unfortunately fell by the way side. So, in the face of microsoft's gaming zone abandoning us, Drive2Survive stepped to the plate and created the programming at rengamesonline.com so that we could have a place to meet and race. And he did it without resorting to microsoft's bloated (answer to sun microsystem's) addon programming layer, infamous for killing operating systems and hard drives. As a result, rengamesonline.com looks as good if not better than the zone ever did and it works as well as any game launching system currently on the internet. I don't know whether rengamesonline.com will be the solution to all our needs, but Drive2Survive has shown us beyond all doubt that mtm's fate is within our own grasp. Thanks Drive2Survive, ya done good mate.

Next on the list, if we stick with locations a moment longer, we have to give the nod to Meth. Despite remaining unused for the longest time, Meth had the foresight to keep his MTM2Draggers.net website online for the dragging side of the mtm community... and his patience has paid off. Meth, together with newly acquired moderators DaveTheSmasher and Chris Kaelin, has revitalized mtm dragging, and he and the crew have provided the draggers with a solid and stable home.

Staying with drags a moment longer, I want to acknowledge and give a gracious tip of the old chapeau to runt9 who has undertaken the enormous task of writing tutorials and help pages catering specifically to the drag track enthusiast. You can find his work at his self-named website "runt9.com" where he's got plenty on offer for drag makers, new and old. Way to go runt9!

But truth be told, game action is what mtm is about. And while pick-up races are fun, the heartbeat of the game are organized tournaments. To that end, then, we want to send out a big round of applause to BurninDirt, GuyWood and the MOD team for their work this year - especially for hosting 28 RnR tournaments which have made RnR a truly public event. Nice going guys, and we hope the upcoming year is just as good as this past one.

Also, shortly after his return from a long absence, OLD_NICKatNITE donned the name The_Barbarian for the purpose of hosting his 16 week Sunday Afternoon in the Park racing series. It's the first time I've seen a long-term limited series and it seems to have worked out well. You can check the results at his site and Jammer has kept us up to date in the forum. Two thumbs up, Nick. Nicely done.

Last, for today, but certainly not least, is mtm's workhorse tourney master: ShadowPrincess. Her mtm curriculum vitae is a long one that includes picking up tournament duties from all2much, being instrumental in keeping the zone open well after the scheduled closure date, bringing mtm first to wgc, then to battlehq, and most recently to rengamesonline.com, she has made tracks, and has hosted over 240 tournaments including 56 racing tournaments and 80 rumble tournaments this year alone. Currently ShadowPrincess has registered a new mtm specific domain name on which she will be hosting her tournament information and she will select the Guitar Bill Expo tracks (DaveTheSmasher will select the drag tracks) to be run in the racing tournaments this coming February. If there has been a dramatic increase in track and truck production, and there has been, we owe much of it to the efforts of the Empress of MTM, ShadowPrincess. Whatever mtm's future may be, you can be sure that ShadowPrincess will be in the thick of it making things happen. Accept no imitation!

Since Guitar Bill's unexpected passing in 2004, racing tournaments in February have been dedicated to his memory. Each year races have either been on one of his own tracks or tracks in the style and spirit that Bill valued. For this upcoming year, we thought it would be an idea to create original tracks in his honor. Just as with other expos, this will be an opportunity for track makers (and trucks too, why not?) to showcase their work, and this time do it by paying tribute to the one person who has single handedly contributed more to mtm than any other.

This expo will be more informal than years previously and the only requirement will be that the track should be completed and uploaded between January 1st and 15th, 2008 so that there will be ample time to schedule tracks for February's tournaments. Honors, of course, will go to those selected, and in the event of a surplus some tracks may be used in next year's tournaments as well.

It's been a couple weeks since the hard drive crash and I think we've recovered everything that we're going to... which hasn't been as bad as I originally anticipated. Fact is, we've recovered every single truck between the last backup and the crash, and we've managed to collect every track but two. I'd like to extend a huge bucket full of thank yous to emphummies for salvaging a large majority of tracks as well as every single truck that had been lost. Also, ShadowPrincess recovered several, many from tournaments, and Malibu350 had a few too. Fila was the only person I know who had the final version of Dust Bowl - I don't know why it was so hard to get but we can thank Fila we have it at all. Lastly MOB Warrior and PickleJr had copies of their own work (don't laugh, two other makers had lost tracks and were relying on mtm2.com to save them - and we came within an inch of letting them down), so being able to get originals sure made restoring them easier to do. I still have a couple trackshots to put back in place, and probably a replay or two, but we're pretty much back up to speed. A big thank you to one and all for helping to keep us up to date and to preserve the good work of everybody in mtm. (For what it's worth, the two tracks that have not been saved, to date, are MTM2 Wrestling Federation by Kmaster (a rumble), and Kitimat Fairgrounds by JerOutlaw (a drag track).