If you want to think this run is spliced, fine. I know it's not, and those audio issues come from a faulty capture card at the time. I surely wouldn't go through the trouble to make a bad spliced run (seriously, the 38:47 is not a good time) with that many mistakes. If you think it's out of my ability range, mind you that I have gotten a sub 39 run in a live, in person marathon on a real N64, and will even post that run instead if ya'll want, it was only 12 seconds slower than this run and was done as a last second fill in when I wasn't even grinding down the time. Said run was done at Buckeye Speed Bash 2017. I can go into this more when I'm not on my cell phone.

Ok, for a start here is a run of the game that is still completed in sub 39 minutes on an actual N64 at an in person event.

Secondly, this game does completely stop sending audio signal between races. This combined with my Hauppage capture card used at the time caused audio issues. I also did not use OBS at this time, but instead Hauppage's own capturing system. Hauppage's program at the time had terrible audio capture, especially of microphones. That is why there is the bizarre sound that I can only explain as a drop in the first 10 seconds of the video, and why the pace of my voice in that video changes. This is due to the audio capture being "late" as compared to the video capture and Hauppage's program then speeding up the audio internally to catch up (you can also realllllly hear it again at the start of the video). With time, the audio drops with this capture card even progressed to if the game volume was simply low, so I threw out said capture card and started using OBS. If you want to know why I did stuff in such an odd capture system, reminder that I started speedrunning well before the days of speedrun.com. I worked on routing stuff for years before even attempting runs, streaming or any such thing. Back when I started, it just felt different and a poor setup such as what I was using didn't matter to me.

In question of the run itself, again, if I wanted to cheat a run, I wouldn't be attempting to pass off a 38:47. In fact, if you look back to the SDA threads where we discussed this game back in the day, you'll see that RNG manipulation may be possible to bring this game done another 5 MINUTES. If I wanted to splice this run and pass it off as legit, I would have done it with one of those super RNG manipulated runs. I never uploaded said runs to my youtube because I found this RNG manip to skip 3 races instead of 2 was only possible emulated and not actually on console. So... yea. There would have been no reason for me to even try and pass off a 38:47 when at the time my end goal was 33 something. THIRTY THREE minutes. After finding out that said manip wasn't possible on console, I gave up the game for a long time and got a new capture setup that wouldn't drop all audio if the levels weren't high enough.

So, in short, there is a feasible reason for the audio to drop out entirely. I even threw out my capture card because of said problem. Secondly, it would have been stupid of me to try to pass off a 38 minute time when my goal was much lower. Even with the current route, 38:47 is NOT a good time (note several races are over 10 seconds slower than optimal in the 38:47 run, don't think I'd try to cheat and leave such a sloppy run). Even if you don't believe such explanations, reminder that a 38:47 is clearly with my skill range, as I even ran the game in 38:59 at a live marathon after not even having touched the game in years as a last minute backup for a dropped run. It is not a spliced run, but I don't really care if you don't believe me. My best time in a live marathon is still over 12 minutes faster than second place. So, there's my explanation.