OK, so I probably played through 30 more events (10+ hours) of this over the weekend and the game is freaking awesome. I'm probably a third of the way through the Festival tour and the more advanced AI is starting to kick in making racing truly BRUTAL.
One I just played was 14 motorbikes and one massive armoured truck who's just smashing through the bikes left right and centre. It's pretty terrifying being in 1st place and seeing this huge thing coming at you from behind - imagine Spielberg's Duel but as a race. Brilliant.
Oh and props to Evo for naming two of their events 'Massive Damage' and 'Giant Enemy Crab' respectively.
Good that SCEE has its sense of humour.
I think we need to do updated impressions on this as there's way more to the game. The night courses under crazy HD starlit skies are beautiful too.