I thought midway made some great arcade racing games. Most of which made it's way to home consoles. The graphics were up to par to it's arcade counterpart.
One of my favorite racing games are Need for Speed releases, probably because I played this games since I was a little child. Therefore I would have to go with the EA for the favorite game developer for me, but in general I don't like them as much as I did before. It seems like the don't really care for their games anymore, with the customer support down in the ground and some unfinished game releases like the Fifa 14.
I've never really had a favorite developer. I'm not one of those people that put them on a pedestal. If the years have taught us anything, it's that a developer is as good as their last game. I will say I play Criterion and Polyphony Digital's games most though
I think it's EA, though lately they caught up with the DLCs galore and micro-transactions. Which makes me sad, as they could ruin the NFS series I liked.