I think having a race mode where its 1 on 1 or 2 on 2 where the remaining players on each team will try to interfere with the race only at selected spots but can't really enter the track for too long, possibly have some kind of major pickups in some hard to reach areas of the map which will interfere with the race, like you said attack helicopters, spikes, mines. the ones racing would need to have limited power usage though. It could even have fixed cars to race with , the 2 being lotus and photon.
Will post more if i can think of others.
