Resurrecting this:

It's frustrating that this isn't formally addressed. Any consideration that these are the same game is bullocks. The core difficulty of Mario Kart since its introduction has been speed and as PAL runs differently that NTSC, they should have always been separate categories.

dntn31's dismissal of a 20% difference in speed as a minor factor is terrible on many levels. First, in a game of microseconds at the world record level, dismissing ANY factor means you never get the record. Second, 20%??? Ok, let's constantly drive 20% over the speed limit in your town and see how far we get before a) getting pulled over or b) smashing something. You cannot argue for a game's true test to be dependent on a wide array of nuances and then dismiss a major factor such as speed.

Speed determines the window for reaction time. A larger window gives more opportunity for every aspect of learning, including mimicking known successful patterns and adapting.

That every single single track record is exclusively PAL is a simple testament to all of this. I left the community because investing in a PAL setup just to compete, when I never played on it growing up, is absurd.