I thought the cars were literally on rails, until I just updated and noticed a lot of help in the difficulty section, Now that I have those off the cars are really lots of fun to drive, and easier to point using the throttle. I was racing last night at Taruma, and had a huge slide just coming onto the front straight. I wound up going up the hill on the left, and somehow smashing into the pit building on top, talk about a wild ride.
That Taruma track is a blast to drive, I come back to it a lot.