The VW Phaeton gets no respect. It's been one of the boldest cost-no-object production cars in decades, but since it looks to most people like an absurdly expensive Passat, nobody cares about them.
We at Jalopnik appreciate the Teutonic luxobarge that gave its platform to the Bentley Continental. We also appreciate another facet of the car world that doesn't get enough respect: oval racing.
Indy racer Alex Lloyd explained to our readers why oval racing is hard as hell, and why they should pay attention. Some readers still weren't convinced, so resident open wheel fan porsche9146 tried his hand at explaining what's so awesome about IndyCar.
Have you ever seen IMS?
It's the world's smoothest pavement laid out in four narrow corners, followed by two long straights and two short ones.
That's four ninety degree corners.
You take them flat out.
At 230 miles an hour.
In a 1400 pound car.
It's not easy by any means.
Keep in mind that Lloyd's driven IndyCars (which when last compared were only about 4 seconds slower than F1 cars in pace on road courses, likely faster than the current HRTs, Marrusias and maybe even Caterhams) on tracks like Sears Point, Watkins Glen and Mid Ohio. Those are insane tracks with a ton of elevation change and no room to pass. The only track crazier than those on the F1 schedule is Monaco, they're that insane. He actually has experience driving on those tracks and on big ovals and he says this about big ovals.
You, on the other hand, have driven a road car (presumably a high powered but heavy and soft sprung super sports car, like a Mustang GT500, Ferrari 599, Bentley Continental Supersport and the like) 190. He turned 90 degrees at 230 miles an hour without lifting in a car with no forgivingness to speak of and less weight than a Caterham Super Seven.
Pretty sure he knows more about this than you.
Photo Credit: Dave Pinter