I remember playing it as a teen in the arcades, what most impressed me at the time was the road verticality, it was fantastic for the time. I really miss the time of Sega and Namco arcade racers, I don’t find modern racing games enjoyable at all. One of the only exception is New star GP, it hits the feels perfectly and capture very nicely the looks from Virtua Racing. Now if only we could get Outrun 3.
Edit : speaking of Virtua racing, I remember playing the arcade cockpit version that was hitting/pushing you to simulate the car movements, these times were truly insane.
It plays amazing too, it really feels like a Sega/Namco game. I play in normal mode because I am not the greatest at racing games and I find it super enjoyable… The last racing game that interested me was excite truck on Wii and I test a lot of them to find something I like among them.