When you are in first, you are bound to come across a flying blue shell that explodes on top of you slowing you down a great amount. There is a way to aviod these. When you hear the shell coming (you will hear a hissing sound in the air and a blue circle on the touch-screen) try to find something infront of you that you would normally wipe out on like a banana or a green shell. If you time it correctly, when you run over the object you will spin out of control but when the blue shell goes to explode, it will have no effect. Even though you still wipe out by running over the object, it saves you a whole bunch of time.