A race is held at Toad Town High, and while Carl, Dry Bones and Boo participate, Gooper plans on winning the race.
Both versions
- Cheaters Never Prosper: Gooper spends the entire race cheating and taking out other racers. In the end he doesn't manage to win, and in the remaster he ends up coming up in second place and not being happy about it.
- Dark Horse Victory: Boo winning the race. Barely anyone expected him of all people to come in first place, even more so in the remaster where he races in what is essentially a barrel with wheels.
- Love Epiphany: In both versions, Talia realizes her feelings for Dry Bones after seeing him getting into an accident during the race, with them becoming the series' first Official Couple.
- Official Couple: The first official couple of the series is, not Carl and Grace surprisingly enough, but Dry Bones and Talia.
- Sucky School: Toad Town High is noted to be one in this episode. In the classic episode, Steelix blew off the school's budget on a golden statue, and in the remaster, Superintendent Buckingham notes that ever since Steelix took over as principal, Toad Town High went from the best performing school in the Kingdom to the absolute worst. On both versions the reason he organizes the race comes down to selfishness too, as in the classic he does it to one-up principal Onix of Toad Town Grammar, and in the remaster he copies Toad Town Grammar's idea of holding a race to save face and avoid getting fired.
- Underdogs Never Lose: It's safe to say that absolutely no one expected Boo of all people to win the race.
Classic version only
- Ascended Extra: After only being a background character in the first few episodes, Kylie has her first major speaking role in this episode.
- Early-Installment Weirdness:
- Several of Carl's classmates lack some of their most identifiable features, mainly hair, and look more akin to generic Koopa Troopas. The remaster addresses this issue and gives them the appearance viewers are used to.
- As per usual with very early episodes of Carl, the presence of Pokémon as wildlife is something that looks very out of place with the series nowadays, even more so when Boo wins the race thanks to a Ho-Oh carrying him to victory out of nowhere. The remaster removes all traces of Pokémon, and has Boo winning the race due to wandering into a pipe without putting too much thought into it.
- Big "NO!": Dry Bones lets out one of these when Boo ends up driving into the sink sludge that Gooper's gang poured onto the track.
- Mary-Lynn also lets out one of these when she drives into the sink sludge.
- Gainax Ending: Boo wins the race after he somehow manages to tame a Ho-Oh off-screen, which flies him to the finish line. Tellingly the remaster changes this to him winning the race after unknowingly finding a shortcut.
Remastered version only
- Adaptation Expansion: The race features eighteen participants rather than twelve. Added to that, Grace, Blooper, Tucker, Mark, Rain, Ruby, Liam, Bob and Flaig compete in the race this time around, whereas Kylie, Mary-Lynn and Janie do not. In addition, each racer has their own customized go-kart rather than everyone racing in a generic kart.
- Adaptation Name Change: In the classic episodes, Ms. Bishop's first name is "Lucina", but for the remasters it has been changed to "Lucy". Granted, it's also possible that "Lucy" is just short for "Lucina".
- Adapted Out: Principal Onix doesn't appear in the remaster, with the reason Steelix decides to organize the race being that Superintendent Buckingham brought up the fact that Toad Town Grammar held a Go-Kart race a few weeks prior.
- The Alleged Car: Dry Bones' go-kart is not exactly impressive. As the other students point out, Dry Bones used cardboard to make some of the parts.
- All Men Are Perverts: What did Boo spend the two hundred and fifty dollar prize money he won at the race on? A hot tub streamer of course!
- Calling Parents by Their Name: Steelix gets a call from someone named Carol in the middle of an assembly. While Steelix says that it was his girlfriend, Coach Ronson reveals that in reality, it's his mother.
- Demoted to Extra: Downplayed with Kylie, as she doesn't participate in the race in the remastered episode but still gets a decent amount of screentime, mainly in her conversations with Talia. Played straight with Mary-Lynn and Janie, who in addition to not participating in the race this time around, barely get any screentime, with Mary-Lynn only getting a few lines in the episode and Janie getting none.
- Didn't Think This Through: When Bob throws Spiny shells at Carl for Revenge after breaking his head at Talia's birthday party, his idiocy for not paying attention to the road causes him to crash into a pothole and land in the mud.
- The Dog Bites Back: Liam tries to ram Carl off the track in the "Choco Plains" portion of the race as he bumps his kart into Carl's. However, Carl turns the tables on Liam by throwing soda into his face, causing him to fall into the water.
- Dudley Do-Right Stops to Help: While Carl is nearing to the finish line, he almost wins the race, but he drops out at the last second to save Dry Bones from getting burned to death in an accident.
- A Friend in Need: After Gooper causes Dry Bones to crash into a tree and his kart to go up in flames, Carl decides to rescue Dry Bones and abandons the race. Thankfully for them, Boo ends up overtaking Gooper at the last possible minute.
- A Fool and His New Money Are Soon Parted: When asked about what he is planning to do with the a two hundred and fifty dollar prize money, Boo reveals that he already spent all of it on a hot tub streamer.
- Food Slap:
- Carrie throws away the sandwich she bought in disgust, landing on on Coach Ronson's face.
- Carl throws soda into Liam's face in retaliation for Liam trying to ram him off the track.
- Foreshadowing: When Talia confesses her feelings for Dry Bones with a kiss on the cheek at the end of the episode, Kylie looks away, being somewhat upset too, which is a nod at the fact that she has feelings for Talia that she is keeping secret.
- Hopeless with Tech: Linda has trouble getting her phone to record the race.
- Mandatory Line: Mary-Lynn appears in three scenes in this episode, and she only speaks in two of them. This is a drastic change from the classic episode, in which she participated in the race and had a decent amount of screentime.
- Near-Villain Victory: Gooper almost wins the race after Carl abandons to check if Dry Bones is alright, but Boo manages to overtake him at the last second.
- Out of Focus: Compared to the other racers, Rain and Ruby's performance during the race is barely given any attention, and they're not seen again until the end after they overtake Dry Bones and Boo in Donut Plains.
- Shout-Out: With the exception of Boo, all of the racers are using karts found in the Mario Kart series, mostly from Mario Kart Wii.
- Sealed with a Kiss: Talia reciprocates Dry Bones' feelings for her with a kiss on the cheek.
- Second Place Is for Losers: Gooper has this attitude during the whole race, and when he does end up coming second, losing to Boo, he throws a tantrum and begins hitting his go-kart.
- Sore Loser: Gooper coming in second place and throwing an angry fit over it is the definition of a lack of sportsmanship.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Carl drives Calvin's go-kart into the house after Calvin warns him not to. He later ends up hurting himself, though he does not cause major calamity in the hallway.
- Wouldn't Hit a Girl: Downplayed. Gooper is more than happy to resort to cheating and taking other racers out of the race if it means having a better shot at winning; before the race he sabotages Carl's kart so that the engine won't start, and during the race he throws a red shell at Harry, pops Oscar's wheels with spiky balls, throws a can of oil at Mark, tricks Flaig into driving his kart off a cliff, destroys Tucker's kart with a blue shell, and rams Dry Bones off the track and causes his kart to crash and catch fire, taking them all out of the race. The most he does about Grace however is making her spin out of control momentarily, and he doesn't try to sabotage Rain, Ruby or Roxanne.
