i wasn't there myself and i have never played the race, so i don't have a strong opinion on this case, but, personally, i don't think that time should be a mayor factor that could make a race be deleted.
however, there is another point to this:
would you rather play a 50 second, 2 minute or 20minute "meh"/bad race?
that is why long races should be unique, fun and exciting, otherwise its quite literally a waste of time.
so, the longer the race is, the harsher it should be judged.
I don't think two admins can effectively judge whether a race deserves to be deleted or not when enough people like it.
i agree, but there is not a lot of alternatives to that, and player ratings are still an order of magnitude less objective than this.
this might sound controversial, but players themselves do not know what they want - they will vote in favor for an infernus/nrg highway race, because it's easier, but ultimately they will get bored of racing quicker.