I disagree. I have a solid connection and can typically beat people with poor connections without an issue (well...41% of the time according to guardian.gg). I think what you experienced when you won at first was the time when everyone was learning the maps and acquiring their first set of gear/better sparrows. Now that people are improving the times required to win races are getting faster and faster. I find that you need to have a time of 4:09 to 4:13 on Venus and 4:28 to 4:32 on Mars to be in contention for a win nowadays. Of course this depends on how many times your bumped along the way. In order to improve your times... 1. Get a full set a of gear with a helmet that has the tilt perk 2. Understand the maps, research players with the fastest times and try to emulate their lines 3. Side boost around tight corners 4. Do tricks and hit gates to make sure you have enough side boost for crucial portions of the maps 5. Get an early lead and keep it to stay out of heavy sparrow traffic Players with bad connections in Non-SRL crucible is frustrating for sure; but I find that connection has little affect on SRL. Whether or not someone is "blinking" around on their sparrow makes no difference if you maintain a superior line. Take a look at guardian.gg for your SRL rank and times, it was helpful for tracking my progress and researching how the fastest players in Destiny race. Your all-time fastest races are 4:39 on Venus and 4:50 on Mars...that won't get it done whether or not someone has a perfect/average/or a "skipping all over the place connection." There's a lot of room for improvement...start by researching a faster line.