Like @ajokay, I have fond memories of Rad Racer as a child… even if I was terrible at it.
Then there’s quite a gap… I honestly don’t know how I developed a liking for cars or racing games, but then I vaguely remember liking Automobili Lamborghini for the N64. I remember you had to move the stick in circles frantically to get tyres changed or refuelled or something silly like that.
The ones I really played the hell out of were Need for Speed: High Stakes and Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit. It was this series that really got me into racing games… afterwards it was Porsche Unleashed, NFS: Underground 2…