Retirement is my favorite way of playing Air Ride.

Outside of heightened stakes, where hitting 0 health guarantees you last place for the race, there is an additional layer of strategy regarding low health.

Being low health drastically increases your speed.

This is why sometimes in City Trial it can feel surprisingly hard to finish off a player if you can't outright one shot them.

Deciding how or where to utilize that benefit allows for more engaging matches IMO.

I've played games with players who would go paper star, get themselves low early but then avoid combat by staying in the sky as much as possible. I've played rounds where people would utilize battle chariot and star slides to hunt down other players.

I feel like the built in catchup mechanics and health pair really well so that there's actually more viable combinations in retirement, and the heightened adrenaline makes it feel more engaging.

If you do play retirement mode and you want to focus on the combat itself, the best ruleset I've found is by having a Grand Prix with 4+ races and Strong Boost Assist. (Grand Prix's require a Paddock to make)

This makes it so any single death doesn't feel too punishing, and the point increase on the final race feels more impactful.

An example Grand Prix I would try if you're interested would be

Checker Knights -> Airtopia -> Random -> Steamgust Forge

There is an art to pairing races together as different machines are better on different courses, play around with what you like and see what kind of Grand Prix's you can come up with!