The concept of "horsepower" is no longer applicable in the year 2562. Not just because horses have long since gone extinct, but the output of vehicles these days would make those numbers balloon out of control like Dragon Ball Z power levels. That being said, the combined power of the thirty F-Zero crafts firing off the starting line would register a number in the billions. The spectators, despite being very far away from the action to avoid a pilot or debris flying into the stands, can still feel the sonic boom of them coming off the starting line in their collective hearts.

Roger Buster gets a good jump off the line and hangs onto the early lead. The first few corners of an F-Zero race are always the most harrowing as all thirty drivers are still close to one another, meaning they'll all be beating and banging and spinning into each other. No one ever gives much quarter to the other racers, so it's merely a matter of who can maintain their starting momentum the best and emerge from the first few corners near the front. And one of the best in that category is the ever-dangerous Pico.

Pico has been F-Zero racing as long as anyone, and he's gained a reputation for being one of the most dangerous drivers to be around. Going through the first few corners, he slams off three or four other cars, and jumps up several positions until he's neck and neck with Buster's Mighty Hurricane. These two slam against one another for the first half of the lap, but a timely boost panel lets Roger put a little distance between him and the Poripotan assassin.

A little further back, Jack Levin is staying true to his word. He's clearing a lane for Kate Alen, trying to give her a better chance to go for the title. His Astro Robin slams into Bio Rex, a reanimated dinosaur. Rex slams Levin right back, allowing Alen to speed past them. "Thanks for the assist, Jacky", she says with a little wave to him.

"Go get 'em, Katey. Hey, back off ya big scaly creep!", Levin says with another hard slam to Rex.

Zoda gets a bad start off the line, but that's by design. He drops back a little so that he can say hello to his favorite GSF pilots. As soon as John Tanaka gets alongside Zoda's Death Anchor, he turns hard to the left and slams him into next week. A few more hard shots make the warning lights in John's car begin to flash. Zoda then does his dreaded spin attack, but Jody gives John a hard shove forward, and takes the spin attack for John, bouncing her off the wall. John gets shunted forward into a recovery panel. Driving over it allows little nanomachines to repair damage to the vehicles, and by the time John's Wonder Wasp is done on the panels, his craft looks like it's fresh off the showroom floor. Zoda goes ballistic from not being able to take out Tanaka, and takes out his frustrations of Jody. Jody tries fighting back, but Zoda is a man possessed. Zoda had redesigned his vehicle to accommodate his reckless behavior, becoming much sturdier than Jody's White Cat. A few good shunts into the guardrail, and the White Cat is out of commission and out of the championship hunt.

John's communication link with Jody cuts out, and he can only assume that Zoda knocked her out of the running. They're coming up to the most dangerous part of the track, a windy, twisted road with no guardrail, designed to make careless drivers pay the price. John sees his opening when Zoda appears in his rear camera, gaining on him quickly. John waits for him to pass him so he can give him a good slamming off the cliff. "Come on, come on, you little monster…", he says through gritted teeth, as Zoda gets alongside him. He takes a hard turn into him, but at the last second, Zoda slams on the brakes, sending the inexperienced racer careening off the cliff. Zoda is hysterical in laughing, almost falling off the edge himself, but correcting himself just enough to stay on course. Luckily, F-Zero vehicles come with an automatic ejector seat if they go off the track, but needless to say Tanaka's day is done.

With both GSF pilots out of commission, Zoda is seeing stars. He's howling and screaming in ecstasy, and starts slamming off of every car in the field. He spins into Mighty Gazelle and bounces him into Dr. Clash. Gazelle dodges the next hit with a big brake check, which sends Zoda's car into Clash's Crazy Bear, wrecking his "less structurally sound" craft after just two hard slams. As he slams his fist into the steering wheel, the robotic limbs tap him on the shoulder. "NOT. ONE. WORD. BOB." Gazelle is able to counter Zoda's crazed driving style with some well-timed swerves. This isn't the first time he's crossed paths with Zoda, and he's got data on him stretching back years. As they cross the start/finish line for Lap 2, Boost Power is enabled on their crafts, and Gazelle uses this moment to boost away from Zoda. "Hey! I'm not finished with you yet, get your robotic butt back here!", he yells out as he chases Gazelle down. Gazelle predicts that Zoda's going to plow into the back of him, so he swerves to the right. But, Zoda's one step ahead, and boosts into Gazelle at an angle, slamming him forward into Michael Chain, a gang leader who's no one to mess with. Chain slams back into Gazelle, pinballing him between Zoda and Chain, until the chassis of the Red Gazelle begins to fall apart, taking him out of the running. "Thanks Michael! I'll do you a favor in return and spare your life for now, MWAHAHAHAHAHA!", he says as he speeds off up the field.

Kate Alen's getting word from her team about what's happening behind her, and it's exactly what she needs to hear. Three of the other six championship contenders have already crashed out of the race, and Zoda's making an enemy of the entire field. If Zoda can get taken out, and Falcon and Shadow can take care of each other, that would leave her as the last contender standing. She's already moved up to second, and is trying to find an opening around the cool-headed Buster. He's dealt with plenty of treacherous conditions while delivering parcels across the galaxy, but Kate's giving him a real run for his money. After holding her off for as long as he can, Alen boosts past Buster to take the lead. Not far behind them is Super Arrow, still running a comfortable sixth. It's been a relatively problem-free race so far, as he got a great jump off the start. He's still pretty inexperienced in pro racing, but his superpowers have helped him a lot to this point. But then, his precognition kicks in, and he sees a glimpse of the future. "Monique! No…"

Just a few spots back, Mrs. Arrow is working her way up into the top ten, but the deranged Zoda is closing ground on her, with Falcon and Black Shadow not far behind them. They're once again coming to the guardrail-less section, and Mrs. Arrow sees Zoda coming up from behind her. "Ahhh, Zoda, here we go again", she says calmly, as she boosts right as Zoda's about to slam into her rear end. This infuriates the psychotic villain, and he boosts to catch the Queen Meteor. Mrs. Arrow has much more racing experience than her husband, and she can maneuver around the track, evading the crazy baddie with impressive precision. However, just before she can get to the most dangerous section of the track, she sees a concerning sight. Her husband is slowing down in front of her.

She pulls up the communication link with him. "Talk to me, hun, what's going on?", she asks into her headset.

"I saw a vision of Zoda wiping you out, I'm here to help ya."

"Don't worry about me, I've got enough to worry about now, I…", she says before she's slammed into by Zoda again. Half of her craft is off the edge, but Super Arrow uses his telekinesis to hold her craft onto the track and shove her back to safety, but it's very exhausting and hard to do while driving. However, despite getting saved by her husband's telekinesis, another hard shove pushes Mrs. Arrow right into the beginning of the guardrail, which tears off a big chunk of her right side wing, taking her out of the running. Super Arrow tries to catch up to Zoda to track him down, but he's worn down from using so much of his powers while controlling his vehicle, and falls out of contention.

"My goodness, this might be the best race I've ever run", Zoda says in a state of euphoria. "I've taken out Tanaka, Summer, Clash, Gazelle, and both Arrows. That only leaves one little pest left." Right on cue, Zoda looks behind him and sees the Captain gaining on him. Falcon tries to find a lane past Zoda, but he makes his Death Anchor as wide as the entire track blocking him. Zoda then tries to slam on his brake, but Falcon reads him like a book, and also steps on the brake, just a little lighter. This allows the sloped front end of Falcon's craft to get underneath the backside of Zoda's machine, and he starts to lift Zoda off the track. Normally, this wouldn't be an issue, but as they cross the start/finish line to start the final lap, the road ahead swirls into a loop. F-Zero vehicles can stay attached to the road thanks to their G-Diffuser System, but they have to stay close enough to the track for it to work. Zoda tries desperately to get off of him, but Falcon has stronger boosters than Zoda does, and before long, the Death Anchor is all the way on top of the Blue Falcon. Zoda is no longer attached to the track, and as they start going around the loop, Zoda's attraction to the track is no longer there, and he simply falls off the track, and out of the race.

While this is incredibly cool to watch, and shows why Falcon has fans all across the galaxy, it does slow him down a great deal, and once the purple menace is off of him, he finds himself well behind the leader in 7th. Even though he can win the title from here, he would never be satisfied with the championship unless he gives it everything he has. His car's damaged but he still has some boost in him. He takes the first turn out of the loop super tight and boosts at the apex of the corner, flying past Gomar & Shioh's Twin Noritta and Pico's Wild Goose. Then as they approach the guardrail-less curves for the final time, Falcon's car is almost out of boost, and can't take much more damage. He navigates the dangerous corners with precision, and tries to give Jack Levin enough room to race clean for 4th, but Jack accidentally throws a block too late. He slides off the front of Falcon's craft, and falls off the track as well.

Once they're past the dangerous curves, there's another recovery panel, which Falcon takes in lieu of using the on-track boost panel. The recovery panel gives him enough boost to use it once on the panel and have a few more in his back pocket. He motors his way past Roger Buster for 3rd, and now the two leaders are in sight: Black Shadow and Kate Alen. Alen actually moves aside and lets Falcon go for Shadow for the last half of the last lap. She knows her only hope for a title is for these two to either wreck each other, or for one of them to be wrecked and the other is banged up enough to be picked off. Falcon boosts up to Shadow's back bumper and gives him a good strong shunt. However, Shadow's Black Bull is built like a tank; that kind of bump will only get a rise out of him.

Falcon looks for an opening in the last few corners, but Shadow has a little surprise for him. As Falcon moves alongside Shadow, the horned menace presses a button on his dash, and a small cloud of nanomachines pours out of the side of his machine, and migrates into the engine of the Blue Falcon. Suddenly, a flashing light appears in Falcon's cockpit, and his motor begins to sputter. He thinks that maybe his engine had been worn out from carrying Zoda, but before he could make a diagnosis, his right engine fails and he stalls out on the track coming down the home stretch. Alen tries to make a last-ditch effort to take out Shadow, but he throws a mean block, and that's all she can do. Black Shadow wins the race, and the championship.

Falcon tries to figure out what went wrong as he runs diagnostic scans on his engine. His self-diagnosis quickly determines that something had gotten in the engines, and he has a good feeling Shadow did something to his craft. However, before he can get out and check, his car is struck by the last place finisher, Billy. He plows into the Blue Falcon, and his craft flies forward, crashing through the LED finish line banner over the track before coming to a rest several hundred feet past the finish line. Technically, he finishes the race in 20th, ahead of the cars that crashed out and Billy, but still not enough to pry the title away from Shadow.

Shadow keeps driving his vehicle and ejects from the Black Bull right before it plows through the winner's stage, destroying the platform. He lands on the wreckage of the ruined set and grabs the briefcase containing the one billion space credits. Once the money is in his possession, he grabs a hold of the microphone the host was holding, and shouts into it…

"NOW, MINIONS. ATTACK!"