Your last vid you posted is just silly! Instead of enjoying some good, competitive racing, Brocky should just run Richards in to the fence and kept his position.
If you click on Multiplayer -> Start new game with no track selected, it goes to the track screen. After selecting the track it goes back and you have to click the Start new game button again.
It would be good if it went straight into the Start new game screen, similar to the way it just loads the game in Single player.