Trivial questions about Micro Machines.

Obviously, the games required some suspension of disbelief as sponges moving by themselves in sinks in sync isn't a natural phenomenon (at least not in my house) but I was recently playing Turbo Tournament '96 on the Mega Drive and found myself wondering about a couple of things:
i) The playable characters (such as Violet Berlin!): were they supposed to be 'real' people playing with Micro Machines toys or were they supposed to be 'micro-drivers' inside the actual vehicles?
ii) Why did Turbo Tournament '96 come with paper invitations and winner's certificates? Did anybody actually fill these out in pen and use them? My game box is still jam-packed full of the entire pad of invitations.
i) The playable characters (such as Violet Berlin!): were they supposed to be 'real' people playing with Micro Machines toys or were they supposed to be 'micro-drivers' inside the actual vehicles?
ii) Why did Turbo Tournament '96 come with paper invitations and winner's certificates? Did anybody actually fill these out in pen and use them? My game box is still jam-packed full of the entire pad of invitations.