Be warned, I ran into a weird bug with the post "Beast in Me" races. I did a few no problem (they are the same races from the quest line) but after one the mission would not pop back up for me and the game would not let me save. I had to go back to a save before that race to be able to save. Other than that it's fun to just repeat the races with new cars but I do wish new tracks were added. Or some motorcycle races, super sad we still have none of those.
Oh and to answer your question the racers are a bit better so leaving them in the dust is harder (haven't noticed too much rubber-banding) but popping tires or shooting the drivers/cars can take them out of commission leaving them unable to keep driving. It's quite fun to blow up the other cars and casually cruise to the finish lmao