Step aside, Cow: Mario Kart World's new fan-favorite racer is Spike, a goofy guy with a haunting stare and some fantastic speedy stats

Mario Kart World's roster of racers is massive, and although the beloved Moo Moo Meadows Cow was easily the most popular character in the Switch 2 racing game at launch, the bovine icon has now been overthrown by Spike, who's dominating high-level races online.

As spotted by Automaton, Spike is apparently everywhere once you've racked up a high enough online rating in Mario Kart World. Highlighted in a viral post from one fan, who shows an entire lobby of Spike players with ratings ranging from the 8,600s all the way to the 9,200s, they proclaim (translated by Automaton) "Mario Kart World has become an environment where Spike dominates the high-rating tiers."

But what does Spike have that the other racers don't? Obviously, we can't overlook the vibe he brings to the function – no matter what he's doing in Mario Kart World, he appears to be deeply concerned, with a wide-eyed stare that makes him look like he's in a constant state of fear. Honestly, with the amount of items getting thrown around, I don't blame him.

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Other than that, though, he's actually a fantastic racer when it comes to his stats. Thanks to being a very lightweight character, he has excellent acceleration, as well as handling to help you make tighter turns. In addition, he also appears to benefit from one of Mario Kart World's secret stats. Players have discovered that certain characters appear to be faster on specific types of terrain, and Spike reportedly gets a boost on regular, smooth roads.

Those sorts of roads are very common, so the little green guy can get a huge advantage a lot of the time. In a machine-translated tweet, the fan behind the previous viral Spike post speculates that this is "the secret to his popularity."

I'd already been using Spike a fair bit in Mario Kart World just because his facial expressions amuse me, but there you have it – he's also a great shout for anyone aiming to be the very best online. We can get used to seeing him over the likes of Link and Isabelle from Zelda and Animal Crossing, anyway, as Nintendo thought that "it didn't seem necessary to us" to add any crossover characters this time.

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