Sonic Riders!

One of the big gimmicks they went for with the Riders games was how different characters could take different alternative paths and such, which could often give you different racing experiences. It might be cool if they did something where branching paths in-race could perhaps extend to branching story paths.
For instance, if it allowed you before the race to pick a character on your selected 'team', and the power shortcut for the map involved... let's say punching through a mountain-side which allowed you to travel on through a cave.
Then boom, next cutscene; "Woah, what's with this cave you found? OH NO BABYLON SECRETS!" Babylong secrets which may not've been found without taking that path through the course at any point! Might be a neat idea to play with.

I agree with Dre, on dang that would indeed be super cool if they had done that. It would definitely fit in as well, just...

Sega if you read this, do that, yes.