Does performing turbo boosts as soon as the bar fills give more of a boost?

In Crash Team Racing, you can get up to 3 turbo boosts by power-sliding. There is a power-meter that, when it turns red (about halfway on the meter) means you're ready to perform a boost.

The bar on the bottom right, filling up:

Ready to boost!

However if the power meter fills out, you'll backfire and be unable to boost.

Long story short, There's a specific timeframe when you can boost, on one side, your power bar is too low, on the other, too high. However the sweet-spot is long enough that you can control when you want to hit the boost, which is useful for timing boosts when you're screaming around corners etc.

What I want to know is, should I be aiming to hit the boost as soon as the bar turns red, or should I wait and hold off until it's closer to the end?

Does holding off give more 'boost' time?

Solution 1:

Actually the current answer is wrong.

If you wait longer you will have a turbo that last longer (not stronger). The more you do them the longer it will stay once you stop doing any.

You can just try it in an arena, do a 3 times very short turbo twice and go in straight line without doing anything. Repeat with doing longer, it will last longer.

This is extremelly usefull to know because the more those "invisble stack" you have, the longer also the boost given by the arrow will last. Which means you can actually be on most of the circuit at max speed once you stepped in one arrow, no need for a mask.

Source : my own discovery but also available on this guide http://ctrgamers.forumotion.com/t1122-professional-guide-of-crash-team-racing . It's called sacred fire.

Solution 2:

I'm pretty sure the boost is at its maximum potential the moment the power bar turns red. And even if there does happen to be a slight increase in speed, it isn't significant enough to risk the many (of which some will be inevitable) backfiring boosts.