This is the first time anyone as ever mentioned this, so I thought the better offroad fixed the problem. I'll re-adjust the course to make the top portion more helpful.
To be honest, I never thought too much about it until it turned up into discussion. Otherwise, I would have noted it.
Are you going to make AI? Y'know, CPU's? Just wondering...I was thinking Chaos Zero 64 was gonna do it, but...
Keep dreaming, it's not happening. ZarroTsu did a good job s far... for someone with very little knowledge of code, but he's certainly not going to whip up bots anytime soon. The only reason Riders' bots worked in 1.09 is because they were so simple (turn, boost, jump), and drifting wasn't even in 1.09. 2.0 Aded drifting for Riders, and for Kart, there's the matter of things like items. I doubt ZarroTsu is up to the task.
I'd suggest making Lakitu follow the player's vertical position at the start of a race, as making a level start on a rising platform makes him go right through it. Another problem with him is that slipping on a banana peel just before finishing a race makes him spin along with you in the air, which is rather silly.
(Also, what's a doUnut?)
Lakitu's movements are a simple capechase, but there are probably good technical reasons why he won't follow you. Mainly, he has to drop from above the screen, something I doubt is easily done with SOCs. Knowing CZ64, he probably hardcoded it. It might be fixable, but I'm not too sure. This also explains why Lakitu spins with you: he always is in front of you, and spinning does indeed flip your direction. It's not so much Lakitu's problem as it is the banana, but I doubt that'll be fixed.
When SRB21.1 comes out, we could use ghosts as temporary makeshift bots at least, in theory anyway, since players don't collide with one-another in the first place anyway. You could probably then just put some item AI in, but IDK how you'd handle bots getting interrupted by items though.
Ghosts are direct replications of what the players do, so:
1: They would need to be made for every single character, as they are all different, barring Knux sharing stats with Eggman... for some reason.
2: Items would mess them up HARD.
Though, having some Staff Ghosts wouldn't be out of the question... if Time Attack is re-added and fixed so Checkpoints work.