Looking at these leaves me thinking there should be a Ratchet and Clank racing game

On topic, Sonic RCW looks pretty good tbh, but MKW is definitely the one that looks more fun to me. 

The problem, if there is one, for Mario Kart is that when you first look at at, it's basically just Mario Kart 8 Pro. You literally just go oh, it's Mario Kart. Cool. It's not like it was with Mario 64, or Double Dash where there was this amazing leap forward. So you're left with a meh, it's Mario Kart vibes... or at least that's how it feels for me.

But this isn't really a Nintendo thing, it's an industry thing. Everything feels sort of meh these days. Everything feels like I've seen it/played it before.

It just looks so slow and empty, if you look at any video you can see the mini map of the tracks and they look disastrous. Will it be fun, most definitely especially if you're doing local MP but is it gonna be a really solid game that feels refined and premium, a game that can dethrone CTR. Doubtful. 

I love it, have great memories with Mario Kart Wii and I love 8 for what it is even solo but they just won't follow the obvious blueprint that was left for them in 1999, it doesn't get better than CTR and that's objective, I don't even think it's subjective for debate, you can like one or the other more but any sane person has to see that CTR is objectively better. It'll be great for the casuals as the games always are but it doesn't take much to create a game that is great casual and then has layers of depth and a high skill ceiling for those looking for it as with CTR. Sonic Cross World looks on the surface like it understands this but I'm a little less excited now that I know the cross worlds aren't a product of the SSD like Rift apart and just a point where the track suddenly changes to another style and the portal is just a door way. 

I played the other two Sonic racing game since they they were PS+ games, and I got bored with them pretty quickly. I might have played them an hour each. Hopefully this new one is a good game.

I remember playing the demo of a Sonic racing game on the Wii U, I think it was called Transformed. Its quality was so far off from Mario Kart as your typical Sonic platformer is from a Mario platformer. This "raving" game looks very much the same.

Transformed is the best one and one of the best in the genre. The Sonic only ones are meh. Transformed did things that later Mario Karts would rip from it. The transforming vehicles and the music transitions in different environments/situations. Something MK8 stole from it.

I know you are way too deep into Nintendo but.. LOL.

Transformed (and the prior Sonic Racing game, All Stars in 2010) were very good games.
I don't think they quite hit the same highs as Mario Kart though. Nintendo's series just hits that magical note of orchestrated mayhem that makes it the perfect party game.
They also just feel more refined, for instance Sonic Racing 1 and Transformed were 30fps with some dips while Mario Kart Wii/8 were 60.

I am just stating the obvious.

Even the poll of this thread shows that Sonic is worse than a fart. A grand total of 0 votes for Sonic so far.