Im new to the game so forgive me if this is common information somewhere and ive missed it.

I recently scored a 2:42 in Extreme Snowbaording! Yay finally a run without any major errors.

Ive noticed Bowser is used in the WR run. Why is that? how is speed atually calculated for in the game? And how much faster is he really? 5% ? 15%?

If anyone has some sort of master table for these questions let me know! Im really hoping to improve on my time.