Rainbow Road



And so we come to the end of our journey. It's been a hard fought trial through desert and snowland. From the icy chill of penguin lands, to the molten lava of the evil castle. We've had some adventures through beach and jungle. We've had some pain in farm and valley. We've been scared on the boardwalk, and eaten chocolate at the mountain. And in between all that we visited the turnpike, the raceways and the stadium and entralled the masses of spectators. But now, at last, we're here in outer space, on an impossible rainbow. All that remains now, is to select a player.






I fully expect this to be the shortest strat page. Not because it would be ironic, but because it's generally quite a featureless track. There are no off-road areas. The whole track is bordered on both sides by a uniform fence. And it could do with being about a minute shorter per lap. So let's begin.

The Tran

The lap begins with you sitting on top of a gentle slope that will lead into a very steep drop. The most important part about the opening 10 seconds or so is how you take this drop. David Tran was the first to show that sticking to the road as you descend, was much faster than becoming airborne. This is why we we refer to any instance where you stick to a hill (where through normal driving you may become airborne as you go down it), as tranning the hill. If you approach the slope at normal speed you will almost certainly fly into the air. This is one of two spots on the track where you can accidentally fall off if you're not careful. If you do become airborne, make sure you were pointing straight before, so that you at least land on the track below and not fall endlessly through empty space. The key to tranning the hill is to slow down slightly before you pass the point you would normal leave the track at. Some people release the A button slightly beforehand, and then triple tap A to get maximum speed down the hill. If you get it right, you'll notice a massive uptick in your speed. I find that I'm more consistent when I actually apply the brake just before this point. Either way, if you triple tap A too soon, you'll still leave the track a little bit on your way down. Lap 1 is a good place to practice this over and over until you feel ok with it. Getting a decent tran on all 3 laps will help your time quite significantly. Some people find that they're more consistent on lap 1 if they don't slide into an MT from the start shroom, but since you won't have that luxury on lap 2 or 3, it's best to start with an MT and practice it that way. The absolute fastest method is to bump off the fence just as you get the MT to orange. This will force the MT to release and straighten out your kart faster than normal. In theory, MTing like this is faster wherever you can do it, but it's difficult to think of good places to risk doing it, and it's only slightly faster.

Chomp

When you reach the bottom of the hill, and are starting uphill again, you should hop into 4 SSMTs. You can do them left-facing or right-facing. I sometimes think that the right-facing ones are better due to the slight slope of the road, but you can decide for yourself what's most comfortable for you. On lap 2, this area will have an annoying chomp going back and forth, snapping his teeth at you. These guys will appear throughout the track on all 3 laps. Although there are only 3 of them in total, you'll have to pass each 4 times, making for 12 individual chomp-dodging adventures.


Chomp chomp chomp chomp.



As you SSMT your way up this first hill, you'll pass under an actual circular rainbow floating in space, which is nice to look at. What's sort of bizarre to look at though are the various neon pictures of our favourite character who seem to pop up at random around the track. Whilst these can be quite off-putting and startling the first time you play this track, you'll soon forget they're even there.

MTing around the next corner should be done in a nice rhythmic way. There's no need to rush them. Just let the natural curve of the corner dictate when you jump into the next one. The corner is a bit jagged though, so be careful not to accidentally hit into the fence by going too close. The only upside to hitting the fence almost anywhere on the track, is that it doesn't slow you down too much, and it will usually just bounce you out of your slide. On lap 1, there will be a chomp here to overcome, but you should be able to pass inside him to the right without any fuss. When you release your final corner MT into the next straight, you can slow down your MTing speed and get slightly longer glides. Whether you do right-facing or left-facing SSMTs here is unimportant. The most important thing is to time them and space them out evenly so that you perform one final MT into the downhill corner to the left at the end of the straight.


CHOMP!! If he's up here, you've been very slow indeed.



Glide down this slope. Trying to do an MT here of any kind is difficult and slightly pointless. Also, due to the slope of the hill, it's the other spot where it's possible to accidentally slide off the track. So just release the MT at the top and glide down towards the spiral section with the star. When you get to the bottom of this hill, there should be a chomp moving from side to side. Perform an SSMT to either take you to the right or the left of this guy. Most people should be able to go to the left of him. This leads you into the spiral corner.

The Spiral

This corner is usually more associated with Shortcut racing than Non-Shortcut racing. When you perform a jump at the right angle just a few seconds after the start/finish line, you can land on this spiral corner, effectively cutting a large chunk of the track out. You can ignore all that though, and just focus on doing many quick MTs around the corner. Timing the MTs so that you release your final one into the straight at the end can be difficult, because it's such a long corner. Use the neon picture of a ghostly boo as a signal that you can fit in 1 more MT.


BOO!!



On the next straight, after your glide, you should be able to fit in an SSMT and go to the right of an incoming chomp. Then perform a normal MT around the corner to the right, glide. Do an SSMT on this straight. Glide. Then prepare yourself for a slightly more awkward corner. The first thing you need to do is to get a left-facing SSMT just before you enter it. Then you can choose to either get 2 long MTs around this corner, or 3 shorter ones. The best players do 3, but it can be easier not to rush things. The following straight has a chomp on it on lap 3. This can be blocking you on either side, but you should be able to see it in time to choose the right line to get around it. In any case, do a single SSMT on this straight, and then jump into an MT around the corner to the right. This corner turns more gradually than you would ideally like, so you may need to hold off on your release until you can get a proper release into the right side of the road leading down into the dip.


Yummy



The Shroom

If you're going for a fastest lap, you can use 2 of your shrooms absolutely anywhere you like. There's no real agreed spot that's any faster than the others. Just make sure it's on a corner. For 1 of the shrooms however, you'll need to use it here. There's a dip in the road, and a steep incline on the other side. You need a shroom to successfully navigate this part of the track without slowing down horribly. The easiest way to do this is just to shroom straight up the hill, but if you've learned anything over these 16 tracks, (and you better have learned something and not just looked at the pictures!!) it's that you should never shroom without sliding, and that's what you'll need to do here. From your starting position at the bottom of the dip on the right, slideshroom up the hill to the left, and then release it when you get to the top. This is very difficult to do without hitting into the wall on the right, but it won't slow you down too much, so don't let it keep you awake at night. If it does, just count sheep, or go to moo moo farm and count the cows. The road is quite narrow, but if you're lucky, or very skilled, you can just about do this shroomslide SSMT without hitting any walls.


I may need a rocket



After the shroom, there are only 2 real corners to go. However, these 2 corners and the final straight take 1/3rd of the time of the entire track. On laps 2 and 3 there will be a chomp on this 1st corner. You will see both very late, so a knowledge of how fast you're going is key to knowing whether to stay tight to the corner or to go a little wider. Do around 6 evenly spaced MTs around this corner. The final corner turns a little more gently than the previous one, and you'll do around 8 MTs on this one. On lap 2 a chomp will be here to greet you, so be wary of him. If you can go inside the previous one on lap 2, you may be able to go inside of this one.

The final straight has a slight left-right kink in it near the top, but it's pretty much just a straight line to the finish. You will do about 5 SSMTs in total here. On lap 1 and 2, a chomp will be making a last ditch effort to spoil your lap, but this is just to keep you on your toes...or wheels. When you get very quick around here, you will start to get the message that your ghost can't be saved. This can be a little annoying. If you want to set a ghost for a fastest lap attempt, you can always choose to take the shortcut on lap 2 or 3. This should allow you to finish without running out of space to store your ghost.

And that's it. I hope you've enjoyed my meandering and occasionally useful strategy tips, even if you only came for the pretty pictures. Good luck out there!


Somewhere over the rainbow