Not that you were talking to me on this one, but are you just trolling? I mean, if you are, you got me /hattip, but if you aren't, what are you getting at?

If NASCAR suddenly went to all road courses, would it be interesting? If they used fuel injected engines? What if the cars used more distinguished chassis? Do you watch the Indy 500 or any other IRL race/road race?

Just trying to put my finger on what, specifically, is the point at which racing becomes elegant?

Don't want to speak for him, but I'd imagine turning left takes skill when everyone is doing it equally. Kinda the same as turning right, or driving up the same mountain. If you put a group of people on a track, the one that can get his car through those turns (be the boring lefts, or exciting rights) the fastest wins.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pg4vSWywWg8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbyHGAxe1ts

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4pbGTjVtz4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha0iZSPqAOg

Ok, watching one car go around an oval is boring, but racing with other cars is not at all the same thing. Now I'm not going to pretend that these clips are things that happen every time you watch a nascar race, but you'll never see anything like it watching f1 or rally. I'm not presenting these as evidence that nascar is superior but as evidence that oval track racing is not as some of you make it out to be. You guys should check out some dirt track sprint cars or something if you think turning left takes little to no skill.

If I had to guess, I'd think most of us just assume this is an elaborate level and GT5 is the new DNF

i lol'd

What the **** are you all talking about!??!?!??

The best part about racing is watching all the crashes! We dont care about fine tuning and who can outstrategize who. All we wanna see are expensive pieces of machinery getting destroyed.

Which reminds me....does anyone think the inclusion of damage in this game will make the game better or worse? I think unless they make it super-realistic it will bring the realism of the game down a notch.

Yeah, too bad GT has no damage. I hope that changes, at least with the nascar. Is gt5 going to have rally in it like some of the old versions? I've tried a 2 or 3 rally games but they all felt like crap.

LDO

Better, assuming it's not just cosmetic. Damage, with proper penalties, adds a whole new level of realism to the game. All this hinges on GT5 not having the same terrible driving AI that causes every CPU driver to ram you out of their line.

allkindsofdifferentseriousbusinessjpgs.jpg

Not to mention the current solution for online racing with the prologue is to give you a time penalty whenever you contact the wall or another car, which I guess is their way of keeping people from taking advantage of the no damage setup, but it is terrible for racing. I just love when some dude rams me and I get a penalty or when I scrape a guardrail with my fender and am paralyzed for 5 seconds, or better yet when someone else puts me into the guardrail. Damage would be so much better. Actually, no damage and no penalty would still be better than what they came up with.

nvm, just saw the rally car in the trailer

Then just go to a destruction derby or a monster truck rally or whatever your local Redneck Society is hosting at the moment. Why even bother with the pretense of a race?

Sure, it can be exciting when there is a crash, but I love F1 for the strategy and the intrigue, amongst other things, though I think to fully enjoy it you have to follow it and get to know the 'metagame' of the sport, which you can't get from just watching a single race or two.

Also, on the topic of NASCAR - using the GT steering wheel whilst racing in an oval on prologue is actually quite tricky as the handling becomes so soft, and you have to be gentle in weaving through traffic so as to stop the tail kicking out. However, this is just the perfection of one particular skill, and it is nowhere near as hard as racing a proper track where you're thinking about gear shifting, breaking, racing line, feathering the throttle etc...

Edit - In response to the post above, GT5 has full rights to the WRC!

First of all, the WRC thing is fantastic.

Second, with the exception of shifting, NASCAR racing requires all of those skills that you mention, although on some of the bigger tracks there is little braking. GT is a poor representation of oval track racing, as the only real oval track they've used (I think) is Daytona, which is hardly a good track to test driving ability. Plus, GT is very forgiving, and allows you to continue racing after making a mistake that would have been a spin in a real race car. The GT physics model will make nascar driving very easy in comparison to the real thing. If anybody wants to test his stock car ability, find a copy of nascar racing 2003 by sierra for PC and then see how easy it is. While the gran turismo series is the most realistic game I've played for play station, it pales in comparison to the realism of some of the PC games. N2003 was literally impossible to play without a wheel. I know that you would be taken aback to find yourself spinning out every lap doing something as simple as turning left.

Yeah...I think I know what you mean. I've got a friend that's always ranting about how awesome the 'metagame' is in WWF and MTV Road Rules. I'm always like bro...mega-lame.

btw, Kasey Kahne, who grew up driving sprint cars on dirt ovals won the pole at Infineon, while Juan Pablo Montoya qualified 12th.