Uploaded March 2023 | Updated September 2026, 18 hours ago

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Date Driven: March 21st, 2023

Finally a PB on the castle in close to 2 years (previous PB of 2:31.187 was set during July 2021), I didn't realize it was actually that long ago. Not the 2:30 that we've been chasing forever for on and off but I'm very relieved to have an improvement after all this time. I returned to this track during April to May of 2022, got some new personal best splits and a lot of paces that were PB worthy and some 2:30 pace, but with no success.

Fast forward to the beginning of this month I returned to pick this up again. Practicing driving in Dolphin has been very helpful, especially with lap 3 driving which I practiced the most with adjusting to thwomp positions depending on pace. I've completely changed how I approach almost every castle turn and the turn after the shroomspot that enters the spiral after practicing a lot with racing Luke and Zeke's runs in Dolphin. I was conceptually doing a lot of turns suboptimally and would routinely lose a significant amount of time to Luke and Zeke before the shroom every time lap 1 during ghost comparisons upwards of at least 50-70ms. After this practice I found my average pace was much improved, and I complete a lot more 50.3 openers that have a lot of mistakes now, maintaining a solid 50.2 opener pace with that in mind. At this point with the practice I had during this month, I completely destroy my driving from when my PB was set back in 2021. This PB came at the end of a short session I had, and was actually wanting to end my session maybe 5 minutes before this run.

Lap 1 - 50.381

An average split that I've been getting recently, but honestly was more than good enough for probably a 50.32x if I corrected it in Dolphin with a better spiral exit, which also made my spiral trick suboptimal and slower, losing more time.

Lap 2 - 50.465

I completely botched the 3rd castle turn exit, and didn't recover until the superman turn which was a healthy time loss. My shroom was also not great. A drop chain before the spiral is time loss that actually matters at this level and lost probably 40ms, and can lose upwards of 60ms depending on how early your wheelie was out of the grass turn, making you chain earlier and thus losing more time if you don't chain with needing to accelerate longer. The spiral went so bad partially not my fault from what I can tell as I think I got a slight microbounce when landing from the first MT release, which threw me very far wide. A very bad last turn concluded a big eye sore of a lap but ended up being a mid 50.4 with an 88 wheelie anyway even in light of the mistakes riddled all throughout.

Lap 3 - 50.275

Quite pleased with this lap considering it was a big PB pace, and actually was 2:30 pace as I was even with Zeke's 2:30.990 entering the castle after the first turn during my own comparisons. The shroom could have been better, and I definitely lost time at the spiral. I probably lost 20-30ms on the final turn to the finish line versus a more ideal last turn. Small nickel & dime time losses occurred at almost every turn compared to true optimal driving comparing to other ghosts.

My current best splits are 50.299 (finally, I hit this lap in this same session), 50.243, 50.243 (50.147*). I've failed much better laps over the years on all 3 laps. I'm due for at least a mid 50.2 lap 1 and very low 50.1 laps 2 and 3. At this point I believe I can be good enough to get a very high 50.0 on laps 2 and 3 if I drive absolutely perfect (for my skill level). Finally within even more striking distance of this looming goal of 2:30 I've had and been chasing on/off since 2011. Back to the lab we go to finally get the job done. Thanks for watching.

* = lap 3 I hit when practicing in Dolphin (starting from a savestate entering lap 3 on the straight)

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