First post, so go easy on me!

Just got the game a few days ago, but loving the offline, although the map is a b*tch to use and often makes the races a guessing game (I often purposely hold back from taking first place until I can see where the other cars are headed).

Online I'm finding that I can't get races started on demand. I go in, search for a open race but when I join it's always Freeburn instead. Am I mising something really obvious here? Maybe I should be hosting my own races? Any simple advice to make this work?