Racing to the top: A look inside competitive UGA Mario Kart team

Featured Racing to the top: A look inside competitive UGA Mario Kart team Cohen Edalgo Oct 27, 2026 4 hrs ago Facebook Twitter WhatsApp LinkedIn SMS Email (Photo/Cohen Edalgo) Facebook Twitter WhatsApp LinkedIn SMS Email Print Copy article link Save The Red & Black is a 501c3 nonprofit. Please consider a one-time gift or become a monthly supporter. Cancel anytime. The University of Georgia’s Mario Kart team, affiliated with the Esports at UGA club, is as much a place of connection as it is an outlet for competition, according to Brantley Colquitt, the team’s game coordinator and a fourth-year computer systems engineering major at UGA.For Colquitt, the team is about more than just racing.“We get to meet and talk with everybody, and we care about each other outside of just Mario Kart,” Colquitt said. “That’s something I want to make sure our players know.” These experiences are often intertwined with their participation in tournaments hosted by the Collegiate Karting League, or CKL, where UGA’s Mario Kart team is pitted against other colleges. This is done through a season format hosted by Mario Kart Central on their website.Collegiate Mario Kart teams are grouped through a division system based on the skill level of the team compared to the rest of the schools competing for that season. However, teams are not locked to a division throughout their entire existence; collegiate teams move up or down divisions based on previous season results, according to Colquitt.Seasons consist of 10 total matches played almost always twice a week, where teams face off in the standardized War system, which has grown to be commonplace among competitive Mario Kart spheres. This matchup system is typically organized between two six-player teams competing in-game to finish for the highest placings possible, getting assigned points based on final positioning.Two players on the team, “dynamo” and “luxitone” (going by their gamer tags), traveled to Sandusky, Ohio, for a local duo LAN tournament, placing second in the competition. These races are held at Riptide 2026 and are divided between collegiate and solo competitions.Josh Caruso, a newcomer player and an ecology major at UGA, has become an asset to the team. He said his experiences of playing competitive Mario Kart at the University of Alabama in Huntsville helped him transition to an environment he viewed as more established.“At the beginning of the first season that I was here, we had a meetup and dinner at [Raising] Cane’s, and it was an opport