Wreckfest several times but I found the physics to be too heavy and just not that fun, but more recently I tried Trail Out, which, despite being kinda jank, I found a lot more fun. It also reminded me a lot Demolition Racer: No Exit, which is a childhood favorite of mine.
Among "have fun crashing your car to other car" games my favorite is Flatout 1-2 and Test Drive Eve of Destruction. If you wanna try only one of them I would say go for Flatout 2.
Among "dude my car have superpowers or weapons" games the most popular series is Twisted Metal but aiming is shit in these games which is why I would recommend them with great warning. Instead I would recommend everyone to play Nascar Rumble and Rumble Racing.
Among street racing genre and its car modification fun as whether engine and body modification for visual style naturally the most people games are new Need for Speed games like Underground series, Most Wanted and Carbon. Also there is a game like that that is very chaotic racing that is rather annoying called Midnight Club 3. But if you want street racing RPG developed by company that released Final Fantasy series you better play Racing Lagoon. The controls are not "simulation" yet it's not easy either so it requires you to get used to its weird laws of physics lol.
Among "closed to traffic" racers Gran Turismo is the most popular but its simulation aspects as need to earn car licenses to even start racing and weird laws of physics are annoying. Gran Turismo 1 is in a way "buy the best car and go vrooom" game while Gran Turismo 2 makes it too annoying by like every race require you to buy a different type of car therefore it forces you to grind same races over and over again for pocket money to earn enough to buy a car long time later lol. I didn't play other Gran Turismo much but probably same shit. But among such games my favorite is Auto Modellista. It's like a little bit NFS Underground merged with Gran Turismo style racing and have anime graphics. The game is a cool Capcom game.
If you wanna play a "stylish racing" my favorite is Dirt 2. Customizing your cockpit with toys was cool feature.
If you liked street racing Need for Speed games but wanted something deeper than that then my favorite is Juiced series.
If you wanna go deeper into technical car modification to have a sense of realism my favorite is Street Legal Racing: Redline. Laws of physics can randomly make your car turn into paper and totally unusable after a crash but the real fun is building your dream custom car!!! lol
So you learned about Tokyo Xtreme Racer series which there are tons of games of it. There are also spin off series that focuses on Initial D-like drifting like Kaido Racer 1. This is not a simple game though. There is a living world that NPCs discuss about other racers and all on social media you can read about them. Drift good enough and you can even have a GF lol!!!! And then you can unlock sound files to use them to produce your own racing music to listen to while you drifting!!!
