hah have fun, its alot harder than you think to do animation like that, im learning with a guy doing it for school on cg-cars and he says its a pain in the royal bum, its not nearly as simple as anyone would wish.. atleast.. its simple to make it go around the track, if you cant do that... your screwed lol
as for track building.. i've started a 2nd little scene for my Z4 and havent done much, but i promise you, making tracks is.. VERY hard
and you have to know some basics (if you dont know these.. i suggest you start on a smaller project)
how to UV map .. CORRECTLY
effects of meshsmoothing (or.. if low poly, how to correctly model something and to look correct without using meshsmooth)
the correct way to light it
uh.. what else.. how to work with a mess of polys which.. gotta do that in a car if your modeling a car .. the real way
and there is alot more stuff than what i can think of right now
oh.. animations of course, path constraints, autokey, dummies if your going to cause crashes, bones.. for same reason, sprays for dirt or dust or.. burnouts, and the list goes on