Well lads, this will really carbon date me (LOL) but I treated myself on my 40th birthday in 1995 with a copy of N1.
(Do the math, you'll figure out at 66 I've been at this for 26 years.)
I remember how thrilled I was to buy a 486 computer and a Thrustmaster T1 wheel so I could really get into it.
Of course this was followed by N2, N99, N3, N4, NR2002, NR2003.
I already had Indycar Racing but have always been more of a stockcar fan. Used to run full season full length (500 miles) races in N2 and N3 at 97% AI.
I've won one offline championship in 1997.
Never bothered painting cars as there were so many great sites to fill my roster so I focused on improving my driving skills and puttered a little with the AI edits that I still do today. I'm still not a painter but I can at least create a few cars for personal use that please me.
I also did my own ABCD rating system for the carsets that really worked well. My weakness were qualifying and pitstops.
And yes I have always avoided the roadcourse tracks because for the life of me I cannot find decent setups. Interesting because I have always enjoyed these tracks in the Arcade style racing games. (Nigel Mansel or Al Unser come to mind)
As for other racing games; I've likely tried them all at some point or other. Some personal faves include Micromachines, Al Unser Indycar Racing; MarioKart with the kids, Nascar Sim Racing, Nascar Heat, Bill Elliot Nascar Challenge, TopGear, Need For Speed ...the list is endless. Just really enjoy auto racing.
I just bought my grandkids a 1/32 scale slotcar Scalextric Stock car set featuring 2 early 90's style Monte Carlo and a track that resembles Daytona. They're gonna love it! And my daughter got them a Nascar game for their Nintendo.
As you can see, the love of racing has been passed on to the next generation LOL