"It's so bad."

TrackMania. Any TrackMania game, really, but especially the Stadium environment. The latest iteration of it, TrackMania 2 Stadium, is free to play (for multiplayer, at least) until April 2015. I highly recommend it, and given that you can try it for free right now, you have an excellent chance to decide whether the full game is worth your money later on.

You can also try the previous iteration, TrackMania Nations Forever, which is just free, period. TrackMania 2 Stadium is basically exactly the same game, only with a fresh coat of paint. There is also the version called TrackMania United Forever, which is not free, but which, in addition to the Stadium environment from Nations, also contains 6 other environments, each with their own car.

Flatout is fun if you like combat racing, destroying your competition

Race The Sun is not a vehicle game but still fun if you want the occasional racing

Driver: Parallel Lines is an obvious recommendation

Split/Second a great Hollywood-feel to it with cool effects

Dirt Showdown was a fun, it had a nice variety of things to do

Test Drive Unlimited 2 a huge open world to do whatever type of racing you want, its all arcade and casual

Need For Speed Hot Pursuit play as a cop or a racer, fast-paced fun

Crash Time 2 & 3 looking for some Northern European driving environments ? look no further

Burnout Paradise also open-world, lots of stuff to do

Need for Speed: Undercover also quite cool

Midnight Club 2 open-world racing game, somewhat similar to the Driver games

Note: I played most of these games on console, so I can't vouch for the PC quality

Almost as bad as the fact that the child actor who spoke the line grew up to become a sex offender. And not just any kind of sex offender, a pedophile sex offender! The Power Glove does bad things to people.

I'll be the first to mention POD Gold, an excellent (and often overlooked) racer if you want something simple, fast and fun. It's also got a nice post-apocalyptic setting... if you don't mind the absurd storyline. :P

The new NFS are insufferable with all the tutorials, intros, Autolog and all that bullshit. Ridge Racer Unbounded, Burnout Paradise are better options.

An old dos game called: Big Red Racing.

I've never found a racing game I enjoyed more. It has a ton of crazy vehicles and locations, good arcadey controls, cartoonish look, and when set to easy it's actually easy and not frustrating unlike some games where even easy is annoying hard.

<span class="bold">Hi-Octane</span> : A forgotten Bullfrog classic. It's basically F-zero with guns and rocket launchers. Perfect coffee-break game.

Yeah, the series after Hot Pursuit 2 became crap. Stick with the ones up to that point.

Maybe I'm dumb or too old but for me Burnout Paradise is anything but casual, the "how to"s at the beginning just go by too fast for me. I did love the other burnout game I played: 3 Takedown. I guess I need to give Paradise another chance.

I recommend Death Rally. Easy to pickup and hard to let go.

I'll just say Mario Kart because it's the OBVIOUS answer and OP technically didn't say PC-only. Come on, a lot of the games in this thread were even Mario Kart clones!

Fuel was a pretty casual racing game. It had a gigantic map and the player had to drive over different kinds of terrain to reach the destination. Fuel had many different kinds of vehicles--even a monster truck! I really wish GOG could get this game.

That's exactly the game I was going to suggest...

Screamer 1 :D great arcady race game and fun to pick up and play any day!

mario kart 64
double dash
and DS

avoid the snes original the gba and wii versions