A lot of the new racing titles have a rewind feature, this helps when you make a mistake, you can just rewind the race and redo that little bit to get it right next time.
Closed track Burnout games have rubber banding, if you are behind in the race the cars ahead of you will slow down and give you a chance to catch up. This works in online races too, if someone is very far behind it is very difficult for the person in the lead to get and maintain boost. This is known as "the handicap".