Parity has been the theme of the season so far in Marble Rally. Heading into the ninth race of the season, no marble has earned more than one gold medal, with Ghost Plasma sitting in first place based primarily on their stretch of third-place finishes early in the season. With two-thirds of the races in the books, every racer is still alive for a podium spot.

The race opens up with a single large obstacle to knock the racers about directly ahead of the first split. El Capitan has a bad experience bouncing off of it, and is out of the race early despite staying on the course. Dragon’s Egg’s luck is the opposite, and pulls out to a lead while the trailing marbles scatter in the confusion. Red Number 3 is not far behind, and Pollo Loco leads the way through the upper path of the split.

Through the majority of sector one, the marbles battle in a tightly contested race. Pollo Loco and Red Number 3 push to overtake the leader, while the crowd behind them run nearly single-file through several twists and turns. At one point, every single marble takes the same route at a split in the track, preferring to draft off one another over taking the riskier upper lane.

The second sector turns into bedlam. Shortly after the first checkpoint, Quicksilver hits a low wall and leaves the track for a DNF. At the next set of bleachers, Superball takes the turn with too much speed and sets off a scary scene as they careen into the crowd of fans. Shortly thereafter, Marbly McMarbleface hops the sandy walls and is the fourth and final DNF of the race. Surprisingly, the chaos going on in the middle of the pack does not translate to many changes at the top of the order. Dragon’s Egg remains in first while Pollo Loco challenges, occasionally even making contact with the first place marble.

In the last few meters of the race, the pace slows drastically, and Red Number 3 joins the contest. Thanks to a good line off of the speed boost, Dragon’s Egg grabs the gold medal, though not without a thrilling finish from Red Number 3. The crimson racer manages to steal silver from Pollo Loco in the final moments, and even comes within 0.02 seconds of first.

Additional notes:

• Dry sand races are fun to watch, especially one like this with some varied pacing and low walls. Allowing the marbles to let loose on some faster portions of track and still giving some slowed-down areas where collisions and overtakes are likely adds a lot of entertaining racing, and the low walls mean that methodical turns can turn into disaster quickly.
• Ghost Plasma holds onto first overall, but only by two points overs Cool Moody. The standings are so close that Pollo Loco, Red Number 3, and Lollipop could all be in first place after the next race, and still every racer is technically alive for the overall gold.
• Many props should be given to Dragon’s Egg for what is a masterful race. It’s incredibly difficult to go wire-to-wire in first place, and another meter on this one might have seen them lose the top spot. Their gold medal here makes Dragon’s Egg the first multi-race winner of the season.
• This course feels shorter than most of the Marble Rally runs, and a quick look at the other race times this season confirms as much. This is about 15 seconds shorter than any other sand track so far (though it is similar in length to the recent snow tracks).
• Presentation notes: Those drone shots at the start and end are pretty. Love the over-track viewing areas as well for the marble spectators.

[spoiler title=”Where’s Roldo”] No Roldo the last several Marble Rally races. I wonder if the JMR team has decided not to include it on these Rally races because there is only so much you can do to hide a marble in the sand/ice. [/spoiler]