To the leaders of most races...how is it possible?

[the_maniac2]

Someone has already said this but I think it needs to be stressed as the most important tool of all, downloading the top replays and seeing for yourself how they do it. Play against them and copy what they do, at least this works for me as I learn by example. It's quite amazing the time you can shave off "perfect" runs.

Downloading the top dedimania records aren't possible if you're talking about online maps (well you can donate to the dedimania server to dl them if you want but there's no free way that I'm aware of) but it's possible for some of them to go to mania exchange and download the top replay which is sometimes actually better than the online time depending on the map (although unfortunately the mania exchange server is down atm too ) so until that is back up you could always ask some top players themselves for a replay or 2 (depending what map style you normally play on even I may be able to contribute a lil, not that I'm a top player really but I've nolifed a few maps in my time ) or simply download some campaign track replays, it's amazing what you learn from watching young riolu here

[xanatos.chimera]

I tried that with both Canyon and Nations, but what I ran up against was that the top racers were pulling off tricks in Nations that I had no idea how to do (Nations drifting/powerslides/etc,) because no one had provided much in the way of tutorials on advanced techniques... others were just the equivalent of pixel-bitching and easter-egg hunting from other games; that is, try hitting the brake at about 10.6s, 10.7s, 10.8s and so forth on various runs...

Where the top runs help is to see where did they hit the brakes where did they actually take a different line, but I have the devil's own time trying to copy the lines of a Karjen or Frostbeule in Stadium... Other times I've seen the car just shoot ahead right off the start or in mid-air, where I had matched them right up to that point which leads me to think that some of the top runs have been posted before the start-boost bug was fixed and haven't been beaten since then.

[the_maniac2]

I was never a decent nations player so I'd have no idea about that but on canyon I find I'm able to follow the line of the top racers on almost all tracks given enough practice and learn from it, there's never been a track where I simply didn't understand how he did it, although there's plenty where I simply don't have the skill to drive as close to the wall or as consistently as the rec. some replays where I've been a second off of the top time playing online I get the replay, follow it and then end up beating the rec. It's quite amazing how good you can do when you can plainly see your mistakes and correct them

[iamadv8]

Hats off to riolu for this video
http://www.tm-tube.com/video/28129/riol ... %20Control

[Bramble]

My advice is to try to be as smooth as you can on the slides. Ideally you want to minimise the amount of steering you do when sliding as that costs you speed. You need to get to the point where you can trust the car to end up straight and not in the wall, and resist the temptation to just correct the steering a little to keep the back end of the car in line or whatever.

I'm not a real top level racer (maybe more like +0.5-1s), but that was the thing I had to work on to find more speed. I also use an Xbox360 pad with a/x as gas/brake.