Yoshi and I bent around all the sharp turns with ease, neither of us gaining or losing any distance in between each other. At the items before the Thwomps, I acquired and sent out a red shell; he countered with a banana. The confusing turns put me on the inside of him one moment and on the outside the next. I wasn't trying to steer too sharply out of the fear of going too far and ramming a wall, putting me far behind. Once we reached the Thwomps, my whole strategy went out the window; I now had to try my best to dodge them while not slowing down.
At least three of those obnoxious blue blocks were within a small Chain Chomp's reach of our karts when they slammed down. Nearing the last group of Thwomps, I actually bumped into Yoshi in an attempt to evade those things. We just barely had the speed to pull through.
Ahead of us was a large explosion. This didn't make sense at all; nobody was ahead of us and nobody would be slow enough to be that far behind. As we drove up further, nearing the stone bridge (which was less than a few feet above the lava), I saw that a cell of Bob-ombs off too the side of the track had been freed. At least one of them must have felt suicidal enough to free everybody. But the main concern was the lead. My next item was a mushroom, which I promptly used across the bridge. Yoshi armed himself with three green shells, so I had to be very observant of my mirrors.
After another 90-degree turn, Yoshi had picked up one of his shells and was aiming at me. After I was preparing to swerve off of wherever he would aim it, our conentration was cut off from another horrific explosion, this time from behind us. We were too far up to see exactly what happened, but I definitely heard more than a wall blowing up this time. It sounded like a part of the castle itself had shattered; I wasn't sure whether it was part of the bridge or part of the concrete. I had a feeling the race would be stopped. I couldn't be sure, though, so Yoshi and I kept going at it.
We finally exited the underground part of the castle and were on the large balcony. It was getting way too dusty down there, and seeing everything wasn't exactly a cakewalk. After breathing some clean air, I passed another item box - a fake item block. I was trying to set it up at just the right point - the last sharp turn before the line - but it was taken out with Yoshi's second banked shell before I could set it up. Yoshi again tried banking his last shell, and this time, it caught me off guard. He passed me by only a few meters when I was trying to straighten out my kart.
When we crossed the finish line, I didn't see anything out of the ordinary. If something happened that would cause the race to completely stop, the Lakitu would be holding a flag that would signal all of us to completely stop right there. He wasn't holding anything. The race would seem to continue. I saw absolutely nobody behind me and only Yoshi in front of me. It seemed that he was my only competition.
The same battling happened throughout the Thwomp area - we all seemed to be lucky enough to not get squashed. Even if one of us got hit, the other one would also be flattened due to the fact that we were so close to each other.
The next five seconds contained a steep drop, another easy turn, and then both of us slamming on the brakes as hard as we possibly could. We finally discovered what happened. The Bob-ombs had walked over to the bridge, somebody had to have hit one, they lit their fuse, and blew up the bridge. ...Well,
most of the bridge. The only passable part left was a narrow strip of bridge not much wider than our kart. In theory, somebody very foolish could try to hop across the gap that was made and reach the other side, but it seemed way too risky of a move, and they would have to already be traveling extremely fast to build the momentum. I saw quite a few Lakitus fishing out at least five karts.
Yoshi looked at me for a little bit. Out of courtesy, since he was ahead of me before we stopped, I let him pass across the narrow path first, and I slowly moved in front of him. Midway through doing this, I saw Luigi and Toad pull up. When we were okay to speed up, they were slowly crossing as well. Far away, I heard Wario shout something like "Get out of the way!" He didn't care at all; he shoved Toad out of the way into the lava, and a Lakitu had to get him out. Luigi made it across before Wario could ram him. Yoshi and I turned the corner while I set my sights on pulling ahead. A distant thought crossed the depths of my mind during this:
What if Koda was in this race? What would have happened to him? 
Origin of Entria S1x's superior puzzle is approaching...