At least to my knowledge. The other day I was playing the original Mach Rider and the racer somehow got 'supercharged' or 'powered up' persay. The question is, how do you get this to happen again?
I originally wrote it off as a glitch, but I was still slightly intrigued. I hunted down Mach Rider VS, the arcade version, and fiddled around with that for a little bit, only to discover that in the arcade version, you can unlock this powered up racer by not hitting any of the other racers that are on the track with you.
Now... for the proof. Well, I already provided you with a method that can be performed on the first level, but here is a video (although very poor quality)
http://www.newreris.com/machrider.wmv If you need a higher quality video to convince you, I can provide it, otherwise...
The question remaining is, how do you unlock the powered up racer in the original version? No website documents this effect, and it seems that I'm the first that has found it and has tried to figure it out.