[scheherazade]

To me, handling is in two categories :

1) Slalom and skidpad (numbers)
2) How easy the car is to manage while overdriven



For #1, tires are make or break. You can give some pretty crap cars awesome numbers with a set of R comps, stiff dampers, and a proper alignment.

For #2, this contributes neigh zilch to racing, but speaks a lot to the car's character.
Eg. 1 fingered perfect power slides in an evo, while playing with the radio dial and talking with your friend - vs - focused and occupied to maintain a tail heavy porsche.





As far as racing series go, I prefer the ones that are closest to stock.
The more different the cars on the field, the more people play advantages/disadvantages of the machinery against each other.
When you get closer to purpose built racers, the more every car becomes the same - which is better at putting focus on the drivers, but still less interesting to me.

-scheherazade