How to Perform Expert Driving Techniques in Mario Kart

Last Updated: March 2, 2021

So, you've always wanted to perform these so-called techniques to become a better player in Mario Kart, but just don't know how. Follow the instructions to do so.

Method 1

Method 1 of 11:

Rocket Start

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This technique allows you to be in the lead right before the timer goes off! When doing this trick, you can charge up your gas and hold it off until the race begins. This way, you can get an early boost in the race without even drifting, snaking, or moving at all, and get ahead of those behind and ahead of you at the start-up line. From Mario Kart Wii and onwards, start holding the acceleration button about 2 seconds before the race starts. Too late, and nothing happens; too early, and you'll burn out!
2
Wait for Lakitu to appear and for it to count the timer. When he appears, he will do the usual countdown before the race begins to prepare you for the upcoming lap. Make sure you start this trick here as doing it too early or too late will either make your kart not boost at all, or it will even make it slow down and get stuck in your current position.

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3
When Lakitu counts down just to 2 and right before it goes away to 1, press down and hold the acceleration button. As soon as you see the 2 appear on the screen and Lakitu making a beeping noise, immediately press it now!
4
After the Go! message appears on the screen and Lakitu shines the green light, let go of the button to do a boost! Just let go of the acceleration button when the race truly begins to rocket start and beat other racers behind and ahead of you!

Method 2

Method 2 of 11:

Drifting/ Super Drifting

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Drifting is an essential yet great technique to winning any race as fast as possible. It lets you make tighter turns without slowing downs and makes you faster when turning. It even lets you have a nice speed boost after drifting.
2
To drift the kart, simply press and hold the drift button. This varies based on what controller or what game you are playing, but it is usually the B button for most games. Press and hold the button when at a turning point in the track to start boosting.
3
You will now begin turning. The blue or orange stuff you see from the drifting is the friction produced from the speed of turning tightly on the track. The longer you drift, the longer you will turn and boost afterwards.
4
Drifting longer is much better than drifting shorter! To turn a large turn or to even boost through what seems to be a straight path but is actually part of a turn, simply steer the kart in the opposite direction you are drifting; and vice versa to make sharper turns than before. When you drift long enough, the blue friction sparks will turn to orange!
5
When you are drifting and want to go back to normal, simply let go of the button to boost and continue on! Make sure you let go only when (if possible) when the kart has orange sparks behind it and try to cover a large portion of the track when drifting. You can also and should drift when on a ramp, taking a shortcut, or going over a boost.

Method 3

Method 3 of 11:

Streamlining

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This is an actual legitimate driving technique used by professional racers. It basically is trailing a fast racer, and due to the lower pressure and resistance, you can reach and even surpass your maximum speed. This helps a lot especially when trying to catch up or getting ahead of everybody by half a lap.
2
Get behind a racer at an average distance. Don't stay too close and don't stay too far away either or else nothing will happen. Make sure you are directly behind the racer as well.
3
As the front racer speeds up, you should speed up as well. Try to copy the speed of the front driver while avoiding going too fast or you will crash, or too slow or you will be left behind.
4
After a certain amount of time, a blue aerodynamic shape will form around your kart, signifying that you are beginning to streamline! Once this happens, you should drive to the side and start streamlining baby! You will go so fast as if you just used a boost or a mushroom!

Method 4

Method 4 of 11:

Dragging Items

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Dragging items behind your kart can allow you to hold up to two items and protects you against incoming shells. This allows you to reduce the chances of getting hit as well as allowing you to quickly use up another item after you used it up. Turns out those items that you get in first and second place weren't useless after all.
2
When you get an item that can be dragged such as a shell or a banana, press and hold onto the use item button. Make sure you hold it down completely and not let go or you will lose your item. Some items can be pressed once to drag it behind you.
3
Now when the time comes, another opponent will fall for your trap! When a shell or even another player tries to ram into you, they will meet the fate of your shell, banana, or even an item box. This allows you to perform better in races and not get slowed down.

Method 5

Method 5 of 11:

Tricks

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Tricks are performed after boosting off from the ground and into the air. It allows you to have a speed boost when you land on the ground, which makes you go faster than before. You can also use tricks to get past shortcuts that are off-road. However, this is only available in Mario Kart Wii, Mario Kart 7, and even Mario Kart 8.
2
Simply race to a ramp, half-pipe, speed booster or any other thing on the track that allows you to boost off the ground. You can usually tell just by looking at the shape of it and to see if it has arrows on it or not.
3
As soon as you jump off from the ramp, half-pipe, or boost, shake the Wii Remote. What most people don't realize is that tricks can only be performed when you launch from the ground, not when you are in the air. With correct timing, shake it either up, down, left, or right to perform different tricks.
4
Once you successfully pull off a trick, you will land on the ground and have a speed boost once touching the ground. You can tell whether you pull off a trick by seeing the character do a little stunt animation and the vehicle showing off a sun shining effect. If you do it correctly, it will allow you to speed boost once you reach the ground.

Method 6

Method 6 of 11:

Rear Camera

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Turning on the back camera during a race allows you to watch and avoid incoming dangers. Usually most items and racers will attack from behind, so unless you're dragging items or using an invincibility power-up, you will most likely get hit. But with this technique, you will learn how to dodge them without breaking a sweat.
2
When a racer or item is close by behind you, press the camera button to look backwards. Now you can see the race-track from a completely new different perspective. You can now see how close or far the racers are, which is more accurate than the map. You can even see how close the items are and where they are heading.
3
Once the time is right, quickly avoid the incoming item or racer. If it is a racer trying to streamline, move out of the way so they cannot do it. If it is a racer with a power-up, quickly dodge them. If it is an offensive item, find a strategy to evade the item. And if it is a homing item like a red shell, hope for the best and drag any items you have with you.

Method 7

Method 7 of 11:

Wheelie

1
This cool trick may be short but it's great when strategically used. Wheelie is basically a real life technique used by professional bikers and regular bikers. It is basically lifting your bike high enough to only have your rear wheel on the ground and lets you go faster. This technique is only available for bikes in Mario Kart Wii and Mario Kart 8.
2
Simply lift the wheel up to perform a wheelie. This will lift the character's bike up high enough to get a nice speed boost for a brief moment. Since bikes do not let you super-drift, you can use this instead and use even when there are no turns. The wheelie is also useful for off-road bikes since it allows you to take off-road shortcuts without slowing down.

Method 8

Method 8 of 11:

Dodging Items

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Dodging items or countering them is one of the greatest techniques and can actually help you improve drastically. Since there are several, each step will be used to explain to dodge one item only for time and space's sake.
2
When there is a blue shell coming, it seems as if there's nothing you can do. If it comes and you happen to be having a boosting item, simply activate the boost when the shell goes to you and does a spinning animation to get out of the way. Or you can always reverse and let the blue shell explode with the other racers as well.
3
If a shell or banana is homing in on you, there are many ways to defend against it. You can either drag items with you. Or you can quickly cut corners where there are walls and ditches. Or even using the rear camera view to dodge it manually. You can always evade it at the last second as a last resort!
4
Looks like a bo-omb is coming at you, what do you do? Simply just drive around it and get away as quickly as possible before it detonates. Or just like when a blue shell strikes, wait for other racers to come and drive into the bomb to invite them into the fun as well.
5
POW Blocks are pesky things and although appearing in Mario Kart, Wii only, they are still very annoying. If you are riding a kart, press the drifting button at the last second; if a bike, do a wheelie at the last second as well. If you are too lazy or poorly skilled to do either, simply shake the Wii Remote to protect yourself (it actually works!)
6
Bloopers are annoying and although they don't do much, sometimes they just get in your way and make you fall behind! If you have a boosting item, such as a Mushroom, use it as soon as you are sprayed with ink. Or you can even go to the nearest half-pipe, ramp, boost-pad, or giant cannon, if possible to clean out the ink.
7
A racer has suddenly got and is using the Star-Man, Mega Mushroom, Bullet Bill or other related OP items - what do you do? Though it may seem impossible to dodge, you can still evade those racers entirely by simply moving to the far left or right moments before they appear on screen, or stopping at the edge of the track or an off-road location.

Method 9

Method 9 of 11:

Snaking

1
Snaking is a difficult and expert technique that allows you to drift while on a straight pathway without stopping, making you as skilled as online competitors and hackers! It is recommended that you first master drifting and super-drifting, as well as choosing a vehicle with good drift/boost and handling before snaking.
2
Begin by drifting at a turn or curve. Once you exit the turn, continue to drift on the straight pathway. Continuously tilt the control stick left and right to "balance" the vehicle so that it doesn't go too far to the left or too far to the right.
3
Keep "balancing" the vehicle until you cannot do it anymore. When that happens, quickly let go of the drifting button and immediately press it again, slightly before you start tilting the control stick. When you begin to tilt the control stick, make sure to tilt it in the opposite direction of what you tilted last time before you let go of the drift.
4
Repeat steps 2-3 to continue to snake or until you decide to not snake anymore - some areas and some tracks are not compatible with snaking and will actually slow you down, so know when and where to use this complex technique.

Method 10

Method 10 of 11:

Fire-Hopping

1
Fire-hopping is another "pro" technique, allowing you to go faster than ever to achieve impossible time records that may seem only possible for hackers to pull off. You basically start by drifting and slowly descend into snaking, but instead of snaking completely, you must do some "adjustments" to do fire-hopping instead.
2
While you drift and then start snaking, let go of the stick and the drift button instead of just letting go of the drift button. Now, you must immediately press the drift button and tilt the control stick again within under a second. Instead of tilting the stick in the opposite direction, you must tilt in the exact same direction as before.
3
Congratulations! You have just done fire-hopping. To know and verify that you have done this technique, your vehicle should have been drifting, and then suddenly boosting while you are in the middle of a drift, and then drifting again. If you still do not understand, it's snaking but never changing the direction of the drift to go faster while drifting.

Method 11

Method 11 of 11:

Brakes/Stopping

1
Ironically enough, stopping or slowing down the vehicle when racing can actually help you in certain situations. To slow down, simply let go and press the acceleration button repeatedly. To stop, simply let go of that button.
2
The only times where you should slow down is when you are about to collide, crash, or move right into a track hazard, bottomless/dangerous pit, or a slow-down item such as the Banana or False Item Box.
3
You should stop completely when you are just behind the first few racers that are seconds away from being blasted from a Blue Shell, when near a dropped Bob-omb, or when about to crash into a wall or obstacle.

Community Q&A

Question

How do I hold one banana or one turtle shell to block a red turtle shell?

Community Answer

If you are using a nunchuck, press z on the nunchuck. If you're using a different controller, press the direction pad.
Question

Can I unlock characters and cups racing with two people?

Community Answer

No. The only way to unlock characters or cups is through Time Trials and Grand Prix (which you can only do when playing with one player), not VS.
Question

What if the driver I'm trying to follow for a streamline gets hit by something?

Community Answer

You should just pass them and try to find someone else. If you want to be slow, just stop and wait until that person recovers, and continue to follow them.