Way back in the golden age of video games, the humble racing game was nary more then a line on either side of the screen with an amorphous blob in the center to denote your "car". And you know what? It was damn fun to play.
In the ensuing years, the genre pulled itself up by it's proverbial boot straps, dusted itself off and started down the road (pun intended) to refinement... Adding better graphics, physics based handling, simulating realistic weather and track conditions and emulating the driving behavior of famous drivers.