Obviously I'm not including burnout as the fun in that is trashing opponent cars while you're racing; for myself I enjoyed some of the earlier entries in need for speed (never played the later ones) cause I could crash into other cars and knock them off cliffs and beat them around to give myself an advantage; I just don't know what draws people to say for example Gran Turismo vs.....I don't know, I don't know any other racing games. Other than the 'crashing into other cars' factor, I don't know what the draw to one racing game vs another is.
For me burnout was probably the only racing game I could get into, and had burnout 2 (I think it was 2) been out on PC, I would've spent countless hours NOT on the racing, but on the challenge levels where the idea was to rack up the highest bill with a major traffic accident.
I still also played burnout 3 for quite a bit because just driving around the city and doing.....something, can't recall what specifically, and was a nice way to just chill out for a half hour when I'm not in the mood to get invested in something like total war or stellaris.
I dumped ungoldly hours going completionist on burnout revenge. But also yeah the car crash mode was a lot of fun