TrickStyle - Japan race 4 - 1:22.14
Channel: SadisticMystic
Date: 14/10/2008

Here it is. The final "regular season" race on the pro tour, with the remaining two races (Skydrome, and Tightrope Race over Aerial Tokyo) being 1-on-1s against the guide. Any impression that the opponents want to salvage their season in this race is put into severe question here in a 16-second blowout.

In the Japan 5 commentary, I pointed out that the risk of race-ending death is vastly higher in that one race than in the rest of the game combined. However, this precursor race isn't without its own risks on a speedrun. The opening jump over the rail can overshoot, bouncing you off the rail and into the void, or you may jump so high that you clear the pathway and fall out on the other side. You can even bounce off the far rail, which at least isn't fatal, but slows you down so much as to be unusable in a speedrun. Anyway, after that start hazard, you're good to go until the ending, where if you don't get enough height over the gap (for example, if you're too rushed and don't line up correctly with the boost panels), you may run right smack into one of the passing trains, resulting in a lethal crash that knocks you off the board and ends the race immediately.

As long as you avoid both those misfortunes, the rest of the race is mainly about maintaining speed, trying not to dip below 100KPH where it's not necessary, and using the boost moves to stay far above that where you can. After the rail jump shortcut, there's a unique opportunity for a triple Katana Board in succession, and then a fourth a bit later after the first U-turn. There is one bail at checkpoint 2, but it comes right before a turn where I'd need to slow down anyway. Sometimes I get bails there, sometimes I don't, but it doesn't really make a difference at all.

UPDATE: As it turns out, there's a way to scale quite a few walls in this game, even those that are obviously too high to clear with a single jump. In this level in particular, you can head up the wall right after check 1, see a giant void beyond it, and even further back, see a later section of the course. If everything goes just right, you can barely make the landing in that section, and go on to reach the finish line in under 1:10...but because you skipped so much of the course, you never end up activating the second checkpoint that way, and so the game (being as sequentially-minded as it is) won't let you activate the finish line! Too bad.