nothing is quite as annoying as the showdown cup, so here's some changes that could make it not feel rigged as hell
- decrease it's fuel cost from 3 to 1 - 3 tries is simply NOT ENOUGH considering there is a 99% chance your race gets completely ruined within the first 10 seconds of the race
- instantly get a shield powerup upon the race starting - because 99% of the time the first power cores you hit you DO NOT get the shield and get beamed by the AI with their equalizers
- reduce the likelihood of AI getting the equalizer - sometimes they literally get 2 of these IN A ROW, one shield is spent on one of them THEN ANOTHER HITS YOU AND RUINS YOUR RACE, hell one time i even had this happen (refer to the clip below)