So, I don't know if this was known but, it seems with Tails (and Knuckles if you spin dash up the mini slope and fly to the wall the the left) you can fly over the boss of SSZ1. The only bad thing is it's not much of a skip. You can destroy the machine, hit the Future post (which oddly stops the game timer), hit the speed boosts but, nothing happens... Except you get the sparkling trail effect. It's useless but, I thought it was interestingly weird.

Another thing I have is a question that I've been sitting on. Is it possible when done in a run (game or Time Attack), this could save some kind of time or no?

Side Note: The SSZ1 thing I did in Debug Mode but in a normal game, you'll still get the cutscene that goes into SSZ2.

I just remembered. For those who have the unpatched game on consoles, I assume the SSZ1 thing won't but, will it skip the boss?

that PGZ1 loop def saves some time. im not sure if you have to skid beforehand though, i'll mess around with it sometime later and see if it can be further optimized. but nice stuff

Yeah the thing is with Tails for that loop, if he stays too long against the loop, he'll just drop. I just normally skid so I don't go too fast and hit those rollers that will drop you down unless you can somehow hit the Action Layers below them (according to my testings with this).