Try them drunk.

Big Rigs would be perfect for you

N-Gen Racing was a favorite of mine (PlayStation 1 title). You might want to look into Skydrift if you like plane racing as well, or you can download something like the original death rally for free. Burnout Paradise is solid. Then there's sonic racing all stars transformed for more cart/fun based racing.

I'm not into racing games. But I stumbled across Burnout Paradise: Ultimate Box [url=]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burnout_Paradise[/url] and I recommend it.

It looks good. (Google for images or try the demo first).

It is not too hard (I'm not into racing games and I managed to get to the end credits)

It's fun. No fiddly tinkering with the engine. No obsessive compulsive customisations of the car skin + decals. Loading screens kept to the absolute minimum. Huge city/mountain/lake environment to explore and drive around. Rocking soundtrack. Day/Night cycle (your choice of realtime cycle or various sped-up cycles or turn cycle off completely and have it set to always morning/night/day etc). And the modes - You can race other cars / smash cars up (showtime) / go for Stunt Run scores / be pursued by cars that try to ram you to pieces and one of my favourites - TakeDown - you go for this run against other beefed up cars and they all try to take each other down - and you do the same back and the clock's ticking down and the only way to get more time is to complete another takedown before the timer runs out. Frantic fun!

I'm looking for a racing/driving game which is as good as or better than BPUB. The only two that sound close enough are Test Drive Unlimited and Test Drive Unlimited 2. But I haven't played either so I can't say if they are any good or not.

Do you mean with inverted controls?

I've got the retail box version. It doesn't have Steam but it does require a once-off online registration. Could be worse...

I never found the competition unfairly fast. If anything, I was surprised at how fair it was (in cockpit view, Hard difficulty, traction control and ABS off, on a Thrustmaster GPX gamepad). The AI doesn't optimize anything or rely on a rubber band effect when you're looking, and it even cocks up realistically often compared to, say, Gran Turismo. The only times when the AI is bound to win is when you are in a Le Mans style race with several classes and you're not driving the fastest car of the fastest class. I admit that the game does feel more bullshitty towards the end, but that's just because the end-game rocketships are twitchy bastards that gain and lose speed so fast that you have to be more attentive with them. Y'know, like in real life.

You could just turn on traction control and ABS, turn on bumper camera, and drop the difficulty to Easy, which turns GRID into a pretty straightforward arcade racer. Whether that's any fun or not is a matter of perspective.

Probably it had something to do with the Joystick/Gamepad/Keyboard thing. I couldn't accelerate without a burnout in normal mode. I had to play with traction control in order to have a decent start not lagging 5 secs behind.

That looks very interesting...

I'm going to google most of the other suggestions but right now I'm in the mood of playing something car related with shiny graphics...
Carmageddon will have to wait a bit.

Or you could just go with
BugBear's BEST car game
(Ultimate Carnage is basically the HD version of Flatout 2 with extra content)
I complete it to the best of my satisfaction earlier in the year after putting 50 - 60 hours in!

Carmageddon. Get it. Destroy the other contestants. Win :D

Sounds like fun, good looking fun, a pity it isn't available on gog.

I just grabbed a copy of the flatout complete pack from obnoxious Steam and I even managed to go on with the Police Campaign in Need For Speed: Hot Pursuits, though I still don't like the "driving" mission and prefer the "push the illegal racer/criminal down the mountain" mission which become more and more stressing and less fun.