N64 Bowser's Castle -

Definitely a long time since I have set a new PB like this one. February of 2020 I grinded this track for 2-4 weeks and achieved 2nd Worldwide at the time with a run that left much to be desired, but a run I was satisfied with. I ended up stopping my efforts here shortly after that PB last year.
Fast forward to a few days ago, I've been starting to time trial more actively to get good at time trials again, with intentions of finishing Season 1 of the Online TT series. I started bouncing between different tracks to get my senses again with most tracks since I haven't heavily time trialed much of anything for close to half a year. I tried my hands here to derust and get some consistency back on one of my better tracks. 2 days ago I got a 2:31.358 with 3 full drop chains that would have ended up beating this run by a fair margin. I had other fails, most notably a mid 50.4, 50.3 with a full flat chain wheelie lap 3 that died halfway thru lap 3. On one of my last attempts before stopping my session yesterday after time trialing other tracks in the session (GV2 and WS) I ended up landing this run.
Lap 1 - 50.502: the worst lap driven in the run. Nothing was good apart from the mushroom. I still continue runs with low to mid 50.5 lap 1s since I can still get a 2:30 with that kind of a lap with respectable laps 2 and 3.
Lap 2 - 50.270: an average lap with some notable errors, not a good lap for having a full chain wheelie on the bridge with no bounces. The first half was decent. The superman wheelie was excellent and the shroom was good. I lost a fair chunk of time on the spiral alignment and the spiral itself thereafter, followed by a subpar last turn.
Lap 3 - 50.415: a superb lap with notable mistakes. Biggest time loss of course being the bounce on the bridge and not being able to get a full chain wheelie. I estimate this is a loss of anywhere from 120-180 milliseconds before the first turn. The entire first half of this lap was excellent given the circumstances, maneuvering the thwomps very well for my standard. I got no air on the bridge transition into the superman turn and lost time by overturning the wheelie (as I always turn a bit heavier here for alignment sake with assuming I'll get air time here). I almost never make this following superman turn with this bad angle and going flat. To my surprise I made it and got the wheelie out. I felt I lost a fair amount of time in this entire sequence so I hard committed to going for a risky mushroom. It paid off with a near flawless shroom cut lap 3 and really pulled this lap back into contention to be respectable. The other error in this lap was the bad spiral with going too wide on the exit. I was able to compensate but lost significant time here. This lost at least 50 milliseconds (if not more honestly, upward of 75 maybe) compared to an optimal alignment and a delayed hard turning trick that gives you very low air. I kept it together with the railing alignment and got the job done closing out the final alignment on the straight.
This was definitely a huge confidence boost as I felt I was not very capable of setting any notable times like this anymore at this point in the game. I am more than satisfied setting a 2nd Worldwide time once more and reclaiming the American Record here. As with my last PB, I wouldn't mind if this is my PB for a long time and I don't manage to PB and/or stop playing this again like last time. I think I will be giving this at least another 1-2 weeks of effort as a 2:30 is far more evident now with this run, and is a goal I've had and had failed runs for since way back in 2011 and 2012 when I had the WR here. We'll see what happens. Thanks for watching.
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