Across the table, over the internet
A surprising amount of racing and video games. Dispatches Vol. 13 (June 2025)
This month’s dispatches turned out to include more personal connections and multiple stories related to virtual competition. I’m shifting some subscriber experience photos to the next Dispatches. Summer is for travel and sports, so I’d love to share your sports adventure. Send me an email with your game experience pictures and some details, and I’ll include them in Vol. 14.
‘Did I ever reply to your basketball poem?’ 🍻🏀
Over a couple of beers at a going-away party this week, my friend Curtis said he has a partial response to the Spoelstra-Adburraqib-Kleon duplex from May in a comment box somewhere.
We chatted about the form and the concept of building poetry out of pressers. I shared that Mike McDaniel, the quirky head coach of the Miami Dolphins, would be a fantastic source for a future duplex. Curtis and I agreed that Thrill Shot duplexes should always combine two sources. McDaniel needs a teammate for the next one.
Here’s where we go from that table conversation to an internet invitation. Point me to a thoughtful figure or a meaningful event in the sports world. Send me a link to a press conference, an interview or a profile. Hand me a book. Email me a name. Mention somebody when we see each other. I’ll keep them in play as prospects for future poems.
Dots, stops and compound choices 💻🏎
HereBeCush. Cory Like and Brendan Subscribe. Arte Von Heim and Carlos Rodrigues. None of these names are real, but I’m rooting for them anyway. The first one is a YouTube handle, much closer to a real name than the fictional owners and drivers of Night Racing from Cush’s Golden Lap video series.
Golden Lap simulates the 1970s F1 circuit at the perfect sweetspot between simplicity and complexity. Dots go around the track. Graphs show tyre life, fuel levels and track conditions. Click to push the engine and/or tyres.1 It’s not a perfect re-creation of modern F1 racing, but I’ve learned from watching six virtual races and listening to Cush’s decisions and commentary.2
Drivers qualify for positioning during open time for laps and tuning and laps and tuning and laps. Choosing softs, mediums, hards, inters or wets matters for wear and pit stop timing. Every decision affects positioning. Every track requires a unique race strategy. Your race may not be for first; it will be against the cars you think you can beat today.
I’ve learned about real sports through video games before. When I loaded up Madden 2003 on my GameCube, I called Nate to ask what FS and SS meant. My football knowledge eventually caught up to my wife’s — who learned penalty signals in school when she lived near Houston — by playing career mode in Madden and running a dynasty in NCAA 2005. FIFA 06, 07, 12, 14, and 15 taught me about world football and team tactics.
My understanding of the thrill of watching real races is more nuanced now. While writing this, I texted my F1 friend John to ask a question about qualifying elimination while watching YouTube highlights from the British Grand Prix. Cush’s 1970 Night Racing season is more accessible for me than real racing, so I’ll keep taking the Formula 101 online course. Golden Lap is less complex than running an NFL franchise, a college football program, or a soccer club in a vintage EA Sports title. But I’m already more curious about real races because of fictional ones on someone else’s computer.
A challenge for those who Kart 🎮🍄
I’ve put more hours into sports sims than any other video game genre. The two largest chunks of that inexact pie chart belong to various baseball games and multiple iterations of Mario Kart.3 The release month for Mario Kart World alongisde the Switch 2 launch overlapped with my birthday and Father’s Day, so all I wanted was a three-day weekend full of racing with my family. After a secret Costco order on Thursday, June 5, the console arrived on Friday afternoon. We played every Grand Prix that evening, wrapping up with the masterpiece that is MKW’s Rainbow Road. By Monday evening, we unlocked every character outfit without Googling instructions — except Mariachi Waluigi, the last one, who needed a specific bag of chips.4
After three-plus days on MKW’s interconnected continent, we had one gold trophy. It didn’t belong to me. My youngest daughter earned the first gold, which I’m proud of because she’s grown up in an environment that honed her skills but also why couldn't I win a gold trophy? Our first weekend with MKW showed us the chaos of 24-racer fields propelled by constant mushrooms and bombarded with shells and fireballs and the new mushroom that enlarges trailing competitors and lets them squish you. We adjusted to the chaos, to traffic patterns of civilian toads and Yoshis who should definitely not merge onto active courses, and got used to yo-yoing from third to 14th and back up to the front. But none of us could reliably finish first, especially in the newest, toughest, best addition to the franchise.
If you’re wondering why I’m telling you this, it’s because of the mentality of taking on the challenge. MKW’s newest mode chains tracks together in Knockout Rallies across regions. Learning to avoid elimination was the first challenge: the last four drivers get knocked out on every leg. We leveled up enough to consistently reach the final four. Now we need more track knowledge to outpace the strongest CPUs, who speed away like they hit the NOS button, so we scout CPU routes, look for shortcuts, study Instagram reels of tricky rail grinds and attempt to master wall riding. It’s working.
Here’s our growing Hall of Fame for characters who have claimed gold. Five Grands Prix5 (Mushroom, Flower, Star, Shell and Banana Cups), the Golden and Cherry Rallies, and a Shoutout to Swimwear Mario on the Tune Thumper for winning our lone online Knockout Rally.
Hitting triples 📺⚾
Congrats to my friend Jake, aka Scootsie16, for reaching 100 subscribers on his YouTube channel. We’re friends because of Super Mega Baseball — from Reddit franchise challenges to a Discord server that has become one of my favorite corners of the internet. We both reached triple-digit subs over the same summer, and we’re kindred spirits in creating out of our curiosity while keeping it positive.
That Discord server has been the incubator for several SMB YouTube series, including the Super Mega World Series that wrapped up on July 4. The Arizona-themed team I drafted from the game’s Epic Division made it past the first round for the first time6 and went all the way to the finals. Below, Rallie Overro, Devon Godsendez and Sluggy Boomhauer give the Boss Division reps some sass before the best game of the tournament. It features one of the defining moments of the SMB franchise — a pitcher blasted by a comebacker — a perfect example of SMB4’s traits system, and extra innings drama. If you’re curious about SMB or the project, this is the game to watch.
In the works 💭✍
Vol. 13 was bloggier than expected, but I’ve got more journalistic endeavors on the to-do list:
The aforementioned project about speed — Dolphins! Avalanche! one attribute to rule them all? — for Nate’s paid sub story.
A midseason check-in on the Los Angeles Dodgers with Tom Denne, DodgerVision camera operator and proud owner of championship bling
An exploration of the University of Arizona men’s wheelchair basketball winning a national title in their third straight title game (maybe a freelance pitch, maybe a longer story here, either way I’ll let you know)
Because that’s how they spell it in the game.
Plus, the British accent puts the production value over the top. And one race has a two-man booth, both with accents.
64, Double Dash, a pinch of the Wii version, then 8 Deluxe, which I considered the perfect version of the game before MKW.
There’s Dash Food now. Eating fish and chips or sushi or a hamburger transforms your character, potentially, into a version wearing different clothes.
French for “big prize,” pluralized by French rules.
I was 1-6 before with drafted teams in two previous tournaments. Jake’s team won the first draft tournament we did with custom players.