When playing as Penta Penguin, he will occasionally say "Penguin Yay 1". This is a reference to a glitch in the original NTSC version of Crash Team Racing where his voice acting was left unfinished, and the voice of programmer Gavin James saying "Penguin Yay 1" and "Penguin Yay 2" were accidentally released with that version of the game as placeholder sounds.

Upon the release of Rilla Roo as a DLC character in Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled, the model of the character was heavily criticized for how far it strayed from his original model in Crash Bash, particularly the presence of a large beard and chin on his face, with many fans editing mockups of a more faithful Rilla Roo. In the game's final DLC update, a "fixed" version of Rilla Roo would be provided - however, rather than serving as a skin for, or replacing the original, Rilla Roo, this new Rilla Roo would be made a separate character titled "Fixed Rilla Roo", with his own animations and exotic skins. His victory podium animation has him stop to check his face, and then sigh in relief as a meta-joke.

On the character designer for Nitros Oxide in Crash Team Racing, Bob Rafei's website, he has a portfolio containing various works sorted by game. In the Crash Team Racing folder of the site, there is an image of a blue hippo in an aviator suit named "trippo.jpg". According to Rafei in 2017, this character was designed as a mascot for an airline search engine during the dot-com boom, but was placed in the CTR folder of the site by mistake. However, in the time between the image's discovery and the clarification, the image was spread online as if it was a lost Crash Bandicoot character, gaining the accepted name of "Fasty" through unknown means.

In Crash Team Racing: Nitro Fueled, the character Hasty the Moose, one of two completely original characters alongside King Chicken, was inspired by the myth of "Fasty", with a similar body build; face; outfit; and name in both meaning and spelling.

Geary's Legendary Skin, Beenox Robot Geary, is based on a mascot used by Beenox in opening logos for movie-licensed games in the 2000s. It was added in response to high demand from fans for Geary to receive a legendary skin, as he was the only base game character without one for a very long period.

One of the playable racers in the game is the Iron Checkpoint Crate, which was added in response to a popular meme post on the r/CrashBandicoot subreddit.

Unused files in the game suggest Willie Wumpa Cheeks from Crash Tag Team Racing, Ripto from the Spyro series and the Sorceress from Spyro: Year of the Dragon were once planned to be added to the game as playable characters.