Obviously I like discussing racing and racing games. I bounce around different message boards discussing it. On one board there was discussion of the GRID games, and a particular comment pertained to GRID Legends specifically. The player voiced displeasure with GRID Legends' story. This brought to mind past conversations and debates about story in racing games.
I view racing as a type of sport, which it is, and consequently see racing games as sports games. I wouldn't imagine players expecting a story to their football or basketball games. You play them for the sports, not the plot. Likewise, you play racing games for the racing, not for a convoluted story about your little sister being kidnapped by a Bolivian drug cartel operating in Burbank and you have to go undercover as a street racer to earn street cred to get buddy-buddy with cartel leaders to learn information helping you find your abducted sibling.
Having said that, I did actually like the story stuff in GRID Legends. It sort of reminded me of the Netflix series Drive to Survive. I jokingly described it as Drive to Survive: The Game.
Typically, however, I hate the lame stories crammed into my racing games. The Crew comes to mind. It was a version of "Sorry, but our princess is in another castle." You're trying to take down the leader of a gang but to get close you have to prove yourself to lower thugs by doing well in races. You impress this one and then get sent to another region to impress one down there, and then to another and another. It was lame. Worse, they started yapping my ear off while I'm busy racing. I don't need distracted with lame dialog while I'm racing. I ended up muting the dialog.
One of the old Midnight Club games similarly annoyed me. In that case it wasn't even story dialog during races but just meaningless chatter, mainly in the form of worthless trash talk. I got tired of that real quick. I'm not sure how that is supposed to make the game better for me or who enjoys that, but I know I didn't.
If someone is playing a racing game for the plot rather than for the racing, it sounds like racing isn't their thing. Play something else. If you love racing you play racing games for the racing and don't need a plot motivating you to drive.