Hiya, I'm Ryechu, and I'm working on doing routing, etc. for this game using Smart's Black Sword start. That's unrelated to my question.

I have a copy of the game, but no PS1 or PS2. So I have a backwards-compatible PS3. Yay.

Is anybody familiar with a method to improve the load times so I'm not getting the ridiculous music slowdown / ability load times?

To confirm,

For any category, time starts when hitting the "START" Fire Barrel after starting a new Competition Mode run. Sorry for any misunderstandings. Feel free to adjust your character's style and/or Board style!

Stop time is when you either cross the finish line in Snow Ruins/Dive Into the Cave OR when you retire the final race in your respective difficulty. Just in case we find glitches that change what races are skipped/how they're done, it'll be good to have that in place.