I raced the first track until I completed the three unlocks. It took me over an hour. (stupid loading times) I didn't want to spend 100s of hours unlocking every gadget on every track so I looked up cheats.
There's an add-on that unlocks everything. It's kind of BS that a "creation" game locks creative items, but in total the game (with the unlock add-on) was around $30. Which was worth it. If I paid 50+ for this game and had to pay another 3 bucks to fully customize it I'd be upset.
I've only played it two nights, but so far it's great(except for the long loading times). I'm going to end up staying in next weekend playing/downloading/creating with this game.