I enjoyed Kirby Air Ride like everybody else but it's definitely not the kirby racing game I was promised.
I'm perfectly fine with the Top Ride and City Trial modes, but the main mode Air Ride is just completely worthless in comparison to the other two. I mean, only 4-players per race (instead of the usual 8 that was already a standard in most racing games of its time) that 8 racetracks and 1 only unlockable after racing a total of 100 laps.
I know there is a huge Checklist which works the same as Brawl's Challenges; but that one is completely worthless since barely any of the challenges even give out any reward, and those who give rewards only provide you with more palette swaps for Kirby, machines and Sound Test songs that shouldn't even be unlockable in first place (although this is an issue with the entire game, though). It doesn't help most of them are hard to find and literally have no reward into beating them.
You can also unlock different vehicles, and they're all really fun to use, but those are already unlocked in City Trial, so it's completely redundant to have to unlock every machine if you can already use them and have full control of them in another mode.
It also doesn't help that you can only use Kirby, Meta Knight and Dedede, but the latter two have to be unlocked so you're stuck with Kirby and his recolors like 98% of the mode. And even then, there aren't even any items for Meta Knight and Dedede, so all of their races are super boring because the developers only thought on Kirby when designing the game's tracks.
It also bothers me the fact you can't use items in this mode, despite them having prominent appearances in the other 2 modes: Top Ride and City Trial. Yeah, there are the copy abilities Kirby can use, but those are fully dependant on if the enemies (which in most racing games are obstacles you have to avoid) cross paths with you. And even then, there's nowhere near any part of the game that explains you what does each Copy Ability do. (I was legitimately confused the first time I grabbed Super Star's Plasma ability, since I assumed it was Adventure's/Dream Land 2&3's Spark and tried to approach the enemies to attack them until I realized I had to charge the move first, which I had no idea how to do it back then).
Also, as I mentioned before, the only 2 unlockables characters you had to spend an entire life unlocking end up being extremelly boring because they're both stuck with only one ability (Sword and Hammer respectively) and have barely any replay value because of how monotonous both are just because there are no items in the game.
It also kinda bothers me there were zero tracks based in any of the previous Kirby games, or barely any non-musical reference to any previous Kirby game (unlike Mario Kart, which takes various elements and locations from several of the main Mario games and reimagines them into fantasious racetracks), while Kirby Air Ride didn't have any track take place in any of the locations found in the previous Kirby games, such as Bubbly Clouds, Orange Ocean, Iceberg, Float Islands, Mt. Dedede, Halberd, Dark Star, etc. (Although you could argue Fantasy Meadows, Frozen Hillside and Sky Sands take place in Green Greens, Iceberg and Sand Canyon respectively).
I know back then, in 2003,

Still, while the main Air Ride mode is pretty lackluster in contrast to the other modes of the game, it still has some awesome and fun gameplay, pretty fun and enjoyable tracks, and plenty of the most kickass music in the franchise.
So, in a nutshell, Air Ride mode can definitely be fun and enjoyable, it lacked a lot in content; which is a shame, because this game had plenty of great potential for a fully fledged racing game. Heck, there were plenty of unused ideas while the game was being developed for the N64, such as more playable characters like Mr. Frosty, Poppy Bros Sr, etc, that I'd had loved to see in the final game.
If Hal Laboratory ever releases a sequel to this game (which I hope), I hope they don't do the same dumb decisions Sakurai did when developing this game and actually give us a fully fledged racing game with items, more playable characters and race tracks, all while keeping the same awesome gameplay the game had. With both improved Top Ride and City Trial included, of course.

I still love this game, btw.