alt Hacker NewsThis can be generalized to stories about any kind of real-life racing. For example, there's a whole genre of videos about the history of speedrunning video games (competing to complete the game in the fastest time), popularized by the works of Youtuber SummoningSalt:
https://www.youtube.com/@SummoningSalt/videos
These are presented in an entertaining way that's full of twists and drama, but because they're non-fiction they can't be forced into any pre-existing structure.
This reminds me of Dwarf Fortress, a game famous for its auto-generated stories. Boatmurdered is one such story—it’s brutal, fascinating, it’s in this uncanny valley halfway between random and an actual story. And it definitely isn’t formulaic (except for the fact that everyone always dies in the end; the game’s motto is Losing is Fun).