I wasted so many hours of my life on this and the soundtrack is to this day on my favorite playlist ;)
It’s an amazing game! I still play it from time to time to slowly get to 100% complete it. It still has it’s own active (though niche) community and racing events: CoNDOR.
Regarding the sequel, it never caught my attention. First because it was a Switch exclusive but also then I heard that it wasn’t as challenging as the original. The difficulty curve may be annoying to most, but to me it’s the reason I liked playing it so much.
I love the original, IMO it’s a timeless game. I intend to 100% complete it at some point and then maybe I’ll try to join the racing community if it’s still around.
Feeding it would be engaging with the trolls. This post is just talking about the issue.