I don't have any pointers specifically for racing games, but there is quite a lot of general research on the subject, the scientific term being the "Tetris effect".
The Tetris effect occurs when people devote sufficient time and attention to an activity that it begins to overshadow their thoughts, mental images, and dreams. It is named after the video game Tetris [but] can occur with other video games with any prolonged visual task (such as classifying cells on microscope slides, weeding, picking or sorting fruit, flipping burgers, driving long distances, or playing board games such as chess or go), and in other sensory modalities.
I have suffered from this effect a lot after playing Burnout for a few days in a row, as well as after playing too much with the Rubik Cube.