A half-pipe is a section of tracks where it's possible to perform tricks on both sides of the road. They appear in Mario Kart Wii, Mario Kart Tour and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. They are usually pulsating from blue to purple. In Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, they were changed to resemble the look of Antigravity Panels, and going off of them will send you into anti-gravity mode until you get off. You can do a stunt, but you get a boost even if you don't. The best example would be the final stretch of DK Summit, which features Shy Guys performing tricks on snowboards. In these terms, "half-pipe" means "half-cylinder", which is what a half-pipe road looks like. There is only one mandatory half-pipe, in Rainbow Road. All the others are optional, but many are hard to avoid. Half-pipes are useful for prolonged boosts of speed since a racer can just drive constantly along the edge of the top without doing tricks. This can be done on GCN Waluigi Stadium.
Waluigi on a half-pipe in GCN Waluigi Stadium
Trivia![]
- The half-pipe ramp has been removed from Mario Kart 7 and Mario Kart 8 because of it being replaced by the Glide Panel.
- Half-pipes eventually make a return in some of the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Booster Course Pass DLC courses after being absent in mainline Mario Kart games for over a decade. They are found on the tracks Maple Treeway, Merry Mountain, DK Summit, Waluigi Stadium, Athens Dash, Squeaky Clean Sprint, Los Angeles Laps, Koopa Cape, DK Mountain, Rosalina's Ice World and Wii Rainbow Road.
- The Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Booster Course Pass adds a half-pipe to the skate park driven on during the beach portion of Los Angeles Laps which isn't present in Mario Kart Tour.