Clubs 101: UMD Mario Kart Club
Collegiate League-Winning Team Builds Community Around Popular Video Game
Drive away the week's stresses with the UMD Mario Kart Club, which meets in person for in-person tournaments each Friday night.
Illustration by Valerie Morgan
Don’t be a “Shy Guy” this spring. If you’re feeling like you need a little competition—or are a little nostalgic for the Wii game of your childhood—"Switch” up your Friday nights to “Link” up with the newly official UMD Mario Kart Club.
“It’s chaotic and fun,” said co-President Kyle Duong ’24, M.P.S. ’26, who studies game entertainment and media analytics and hopes to get a job in the industry. “Other driving games depend only on your driving skills, but Mario Kart is more intense. … There’s more strategy involved.”
Launched in 1992 and now the bestselling racing franchise of all time, Mario Kart pits go-kart drivers like Princess Peach, Luigi and Toad against each other across 96 immersive tracks, including the iconic Rainbow Road, futuristic floating cities and snow-covered mountains. Players can deploy Bullet Bills to speed out of last place, banana peels to send opponents into a skid and shells to knock other drivers off course.
Sound up your alley? Here’s what you need to know:
Testudo with members of the Mario Kart Club. From left: Kyle Duong '24, M.P.S. '26, Chris Nagel '27 and Andrew Naiman '25.
How it Got Started: Duong attended Otakon, an anime convention in Washington, D.C., where he competed in the Mario Kart bracket. One of the organizers connected him with a fellow Terp, Ryan Williams ’26, on Discord, who helped found the group and serves as co-president.
They started it in Fall 2023 under the umbrella of Smash Club, where students play Super Smash Bros, and became its own official organization this semester.
When it Meets: Weekly in-person tournaments are held every Friday at 5 p.m. in Centreville Hall and draw about a dozen participants. They usually head to Chik-fil-A in the Stamp Student Union afterward.
For competitive members, the club plays in two online collegiate leagues, the National Racing Collegiate and the Collegiate Karting League (CKL), both with about 50 schools. Since the online version of the game can have up to 12 players at a time—hence the chaos—the leagues have teams of four or six. (Things could get even crazier later this year with the release of Mario Kart 9 for the Nintendo Switch 2, which will accommodate up to 24 players.)
Last fall, UMD’s team won Division 2 of the CKL (“We kind of just farmed (destroyed) that division,” said Duong) and is now in Division 1. There are five weeks of play during the semester, with two matches per week, then two weeks of playoffs.
Who Can Join: “Whether you’re really passionate or just want to try out a new game, we’ll show you the ropes,” said Duong (you do need your own Nintendo Switch game console, copy of Mario Kart and Nintendo online membership, however). The group has about 200 active Discord members from UMD, spanning a variety of majors and years.
Fun Traditions: They meet up with fellow players at Mario Kart LAN tournaments, like the Catalyst one in Philadelphia in mid-February.
This is the first in an occasional series highlighting interesting UMD student clubs. Have a suggestion for one to feature? Email kshih@umd.edu.
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