Mario Kart Double Dash: The “Lost” Japanese Contest

In Mario Kart: Double Dash for the Gamecube, you can press a sequence of buttons in order to display a bunch of letter and numbers after you have finished a time trial. The button combination is: L, R, L, R, X, Y, X, Y, Z on the options screen after a race. This button combination reportedly exists in all versions of the game. After doing some research, I found out Club Nintendo Japan actually held a contest that advertised the use of this code back in 2004. These codes have never been used in the West, and it seems to be a feature in Double Dash that never got much use, much like it’s 16 player multiplayer. I haven’t been able to find any other contest that made use of this Time Trial feature.

…What?

Club Nintendo Contest

Below, I have translated the contest rules that can be found on an archived version of the Nintendo.co.jp website.

The contest was open from January 15th, to February 1st, 2004.

Please register your time (using the code) and your name.
Save your reply on your memory card. If selected, you will need to send the memory card to Nintendo in order to confirm that you are indeed the winner.
You can register multiple numbers.
The following four tracks were used:
Luigi Circuit (Mushroom Cup 1)
Baby Park (Mushroom Cup 3)
Mario Circuit (Flower Cup 2)
Yoshi Circuit (Star Cup 3)
Any character or carts were allowed.

Any person that participated received 5 Club Nintendo points.
*Points were rewarded one time per person and per family.
*Numbers had to be registered before February 1st, 2004.

Players ranked 3 or higher were posted on the website (along with videos).

Winners for the contest can be viewed here. Along with videos of the best time.

The number one spot in each course was taken by a single person: Tagaki Nobuo.

Luigi Circuit: 1:16:910 with Bowser Jr/ Baby Mario with the Parade Kart.
Baby Park: 1:05:963 with Bowser Jr/ Baby Mario with the Koopa Dasher?
Mario Circuit: 1:29:317 with Bowser Jr/ Baby Mario with the Koopa Dasher?
Yoshi Circuit: 1:44:323 with Bowser Jr/ Baby Mario with the Koopa Dasher?

Gotta go fast.

Now what?

The codes can actually be entered on this Flash application. Bust out your copy and post the codes below!

Don’t worry, I’m still working on providing you guys with older Famitsu translations. I got sidetracked researching this, and thought it was mildly interesting. If you have any requests for something that you would like to be investigated, let me know.