1"49 is the ultimate lowest you can press start at after screwing up a turbo start (or the very beginning of a race). I must have seen it hundreds of times.   I believe 0"83 is the lowest on a PAL console. (it was discussed on the french forum a few months ago, and I believe that 0"83 was widely agreed to be the lowest possible, though someone could quickly confirm that being the right time or not)

What's interesting is that those 1"49 and 0"83 pause gaps only stand for time trial mode. I know I've paused the race after 1"41 in match race once, and it could possibly be possible to go a few hundredths lower, but I haven't tried, really (hmm, gonna try now  ) Anyone who wishes to try, it would be interesting to know what is the lowest PAL possible pause gap in match race mode.  

Awesome, thanks a lot Simon    That definately answered my question.

Have you tried pressing start while using the computer to race against in time trial mode?    I guess that would fall under the category of "2 players" eh?

Cool, thanks    I don't know what I was thinking heh. I guess I thought that since you'd press start on the second controller that that would make it "two player". But yea, that was obviously wrong!

Thanks for the comments on the times! Though, I don't think you'll have to defend your ranks just yet    Hopefully you will, though! But, I think I need more time to pull off a time faster than yours.

On that note, I think I'm going to play some smk.