Similar story here - have been playing racing games since owning NES,where Nigel Mansell's World Championship and Ferrari Grand Prix were the favourites. Later bought PS1,started with something better,like GT2,CMR,CMR2,NFS4:HS,after some years upgraded to PS2,there again favourite games were GT4,WRC4 and (yes,oh dear) NFSU2.
Then in late 2007 I bought my first PC (actually still the only,as for the moment I have laptop),I recall seeing a race recap on Giga TV from some racing game,which name was similar to NFS
a half a year or so ago,so I searched and found LFS. First impression wasn't the best - some crappy cars (demo ones),one track I didn't like and didn't even tried it online,left it alone for month or so. Then I got a licence from a friend,so I had the chance to try out the fast cars (mostly GTRs,as I had fear from BF1 at beginning
) online in latvian public servers in the very end of 2007 (29th or 30th december,don't remeber that precise,as these days flew away so fast due to online racing),got addicted and here I still am.
Month or so later started to compete in local leagues,which was the thing I liked at most,currently racing mostly in leagues,joining public servers rarely.
Started with a gamepad (and left black lines from front tyres for first 2 days due to very sensitive analog sticks),learned with it to be better,but saw no potential,so I bought the first of my crap wheels after a half a year,had always problems with it until it died completely year or just more later,later had another 2 cheaper crapwheels. Now I have a job and some noticable income,so now I have DFGT,the first wheel which still works like new after half a year!
So there is my semi-random story about racing games/LFS starting.