From my experience, this is a secretly a game about failure and disappointment- not just to yourself, but failing others specifically. I never really managed to get over the initial difficulty curve and win more than a couple of races, and the ones I did win were probably, technically, part of the tutorial, so who knows. It's fun, I think! Imagine a Soulsian "tough love" approach to game design, but there's a tragically well-written cutscene after every death where all your friends and benefactors thinly mask their disappointment in you. I couldn't hack it. Gave up and switched back to pic-a-pix or something.