City Planner Who Designed Rainbow Road Finally Apologizes for Mario Kart’s Most Treacherous Track, but Do We Accept?

The year was 1992. My bedroom was pink. My phone was Mickey Mouse-shaped. And my Super Nintendo was ready to go with the latest Mario game released: Super Mario Kart.

Super Mario Kart combined my love for the Mushroom Kingdom with wacky racing antics as characters raced through ghost houses, Bowser’s castle, and the sandy shores of Koopa Beach. I would come to master those courses, becoming the kind of sadistic racer who would drop a banana peel right after driving through an item box.

But there was one course that struck fear in my 9-year-old heart—one that, to this day, lives in infamy.

Honestly, the Mario Kart franchise is full of dangerous courses. Toad’s Turnpike has you straight up racing on a highway and has the nerve to throw in a Mirror Mode that has you racing INTO oncoming traffic. Baby Park is a loop of chaos, and any ice course can just go to hell.

Rainbow Road, however, is typically labeled as being the most stressful, especially since it’s the last one in the circuit. The only comfort is knowing that everyone else will also be having a hard time navigating the vibrant road, especially if you have it on the max cc.

Recently, the “city planner” who designed the bedazzled road made a statement in regards to its nonsensical design.

Is this apology due to us approaching the 30 year anniversary of Mario Kart? Did someone find a series of old tweets that could destroy the city planner’s credibility? Or maybe it’s because a new year is approaching, which means everyone will be in the “resolution” spirit soon.

Whatever the case, we have an apology.

Do we accept it, though?

Note: I am thoroughly entertained by all of this. Bless Ron Iver for giving me a good laugh this week. The notepad apology got so many hits that it has reached the Twitter nirvana of “here’s my SoundCloud,” which Ron uses to share a link to donate to Planned Parenthood.

Well played. Now back to pretending like this is a real apology from a real city planner who thought railingless rainbows in space made sense.

Ron’s apology has all the components of a social media “I know I effed up” post. It starts with an acknowledgment of the issues and how, yes, the road is goofy as all heck. “Some people have complained that there are no safety railings. There have been deaths. I’d like this opportunity to say outright – I apologize.”

I suppose, technically, over the course of Rainbow Road’s life cycle, there have been moments where railings have been installed.

via GIPHY

However, the railings seem to be missing at the most critical moments, like trying to take a sharp turn around a corner or trying to readjust your vehicle after being hit with a shell. Ron admits that a large portion of the budget was spent on “colorful LEDs,” which might explain why the railings are so scattered in certain versions of the track.

Then there’s the whole being in space thing because the road is, well, in space!

Apparently, the road was supposed to be connected to a residential area. In fact, it was originally meant for West Topeka, but Ron got lost.

My question is, who commissioned Ron to build a road in the middle of the galaxy? Is there someone above Ron we should be discussing this with?

The most shocking revelation, to me, came when Ron revealed that Lakitu was NOT someone who was hired to try to lower the number of deaths caused on the road.

Ron went on to address a number of issues brought up, which is typically what happens when you make a public apology, especially one that is nearly 3 decades in the making.

Wait, so did the dinosaur and his friends not get clearance from the city to host an intergalactic street race? I was under the impression that this was an annual event that was hosted at select locations. Isn’t that why the road keeps getting upgraded?

Is that why the race had two people in a kart that one time?

Was that road just meant to get the kids to school on a magic bus?!

What are our tax dollars going toward???

In the end, Ron just hopes to be able to move on from this and appears to have plans for future designs.

That sounds amazing! I sure do hope the camera controls are flawless!

What are your thoughts? Should we accept this apology?

(Image: 20th Television/Nintendo)

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Briana Lawrence

Briana (she/her - bisexual) is trying her best to cosplay as a responsible adult. Her writing tends to focus on the importance of representation, whether it’s through her multiple book series or the pieces she writes. After de-transforming from her magical girl state, she indulges in an ever-growing pile of manga, marathons too much anime, and dedicates an embarrassing amount of time to her Animal Crossing pumpkin patch (it's Halloween forever, deal with it Nook)

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