I agree 100%. The "story mode" (enthusia life, is what its called in that game), is pretty dumb, and i dont really like it. The rest of the game however, the physics, the cars, the driving revolution, the fact that there is a clutch, etc, is REALLY great.
I just hate the lottery style of unlocking cars, and modifications.
I use an Action Replay (mostly a cheat thing) disk + any USB memory stick to do so. There's lots of websites for savegames, codejunkies being one of the biggest.