Which Racing game is best on the PC?

I am by no means an expert on this. Stringjam gave me good recommendations when I had the same question. I would say that Dirt 3 is the best, followed by Dirt 2 and Shift 2 in that order. They are all extremely close in quality and fun though.

shift 2 is about the best if you add some physics mods... it looks way better than forza and gt5 where tracks can be visually compared and handling is given a boost by the mod community...
dirt 3 is ok but to be honest doesnt hold your attention as well as it should have...
dirt 2 drives better but looks dated and the dx11 is just an afterthought...
f1 2011 wasnt a bad game... plays very much like an unaltered shift 2 though... but if you put in a little effort you can get the handling to simulate an f1 car propelry... (ie the back will swap ends if you try accelerating through a corner or dab the breaks in a corner like a normal RWD car would)
if you want hardcore sim then Rfactor 2 is for you. the first 1 is pretty damn good but is a bitch to setup and play... 2 will be out in the next few weeks to months and promises a full dx11 experience that will blow every other racer out of the water...

Rfactor
http://www.rfactor.net/

trackmania a pure arcade racer thats free to play has lots of challanges and looks great...
http://www.trackmania.com/
if you like need for speed games... try this FTP multiplayer...
http://world.needforspeed.com/intro?utm_source=www.goog...

I love trackmania. Really addictive!

Note that the downloadable version of Shift 2 is on sale for only $5 at Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Electronic-Arts-40624-Unleashed1-...

That's a really great deal......like casualcolors was saying, I really like this game. It needs the handling mini-mod, but after that, it's really a lot of fun.

I love Dirt3 as well.....what I don't love about it is GFWL, and having to be logged in to actually save progress. Luckily I found a hack that lets you play the game and save progress without having to log in to a Windows Live account (sorry, but that's just utterly ridiculous.....game saves should be a totally local process - period.) I think the Gymkhana stuff is an absolute blast.....takes a lot of practice to get the hang of, but I love it.

I'd say NFS Shift 2 Unleashed is the best racing game for PC with a physics mod.

your not wrong there but i found it ridiculous to set up and get to run... the sheer amount of hoops i had to jump through was a joke. from selecting specific drivers to using code tweaks. i could never be sure if the game was gonna work from 1 load to the next. but if you can get it up and running its still worth playing... on ps2 i managed a nurburg time of 5:14.313 in the c9 merc and managed to get 99.7% complete (i seem to choke on the very last nurburg trial every time)...

so yeah if you can get it to run then its worth the effort... if you have a ps2 then it really is a lot easier  

although all the games mentioned above are great, I still prefer Need For Speed Most Wanted. love it  

Thanks for the info. I'll try Shift2 as it seems to fit with my style of racing.
Phil05

Thanks for the info. I'll try getting Shift2 from Amazon, as suggested by other replies.
Phil05

Make sure to go here and download this mini-mod for it.....seriously, it improves the handling qualities 100%. I almost quit playing the game out of frustration until I found this mod.

http://www.virtualr.net/need-for-speed-shift-2-handling...

If your looking for realism then Iracing by far