What are you playing?

[puggsoy]

Oh, I thought you were actually going all-out. xD And don't worry too much about the AI. Once you get better at the "snaking" technique, you can pretty much dig trenches around them and catch up to last place before the race is even over, just like with any other Mario Kart game. =P

I'm surprised anyone would find the D-Pad difficult to race with on MKDS. Personally, I found the controls more than smooth enough to compensate for the lack of analog sensitivity. Then again, I've been playing Mario Kart since the SNES, and drove right through Gran Turismo most of the time with only the D-Pad, so it could just be me.

I never said the D-Pad was bad for racing. Look over my post again: I said it's difficult to powerslide with the D-Pad. Well, not actually "difficult", but I mean the CPU doesn't have to awkwardly wiggle its thumb left and right as quickly as possible so that it both gets a boost and doesn't skew off track.
That's all, really. Personally I prefer playing racing games (and most other games, too) with a D-Pad than with an analogue stick.