I always liked playing both Mario Kart (the most was on DS) and Crash Team Racing. There's just something fascinating with the mechanics of the game. I could play it endlessly, despite a small number of different circuits.
Actually I like racers in general. Two years ago I made a racer looking like Outrun, which is another type of game which I loved as a child (at a time where games didn't yet have a defined standard, so it was OK to just play to hit the road and explore environments, without princess to save, big boss or other deadly stake). Link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/highway-runners/id964932741?mt=8
But still, back to Crash Team Racing, I always wanted to make my own clone for fun, and I gave up due to lacking physics knowledge (and free time). This remained a dream though, and this time I committed to it harder, and learned, fiddled with every concept until I grasped it.
It started with an inspiring video about Space Dust Racing. I think that's the one mentioned everywhere when it comes to developing an arcade racer. I think I kinda knew that it was lacking a lot of concepts that I'd eventually have to fiddle with, but many people were saying that the theory was alright, so I started. I also created a topic, which I'll now turn to a blog:
Anyway as with many things the very hard part was the beginning. It's amazing when I think about how at first I was unsure about everything. About how I had to swallow my ego and realize that I wasn't able to implement a simple spring correctly, or to understand the true implications. Well I can say that I still don't truly understand everything, but it's enough to get what my car does and make it do what I want so 
so this blog may just start with a common and sweet "Believe in yourself" claim 
I hope to develop it into a fully playable game (homebrew quality though), focusing on the mechanics, and detail here some specific algorithmic areas. I'm not sure yet of the final form, maybe I'll want to get as close to the CTR as possible. Maybe I'll go for something else and think about special challenges that I could bring to the table. Here's how it looks for now 
Not playable demo yet, but feel free to leave your impressions, suggestions, and anything that you'd like to see in such a project
CarGame-v2.mp4
Hi Brunni!
I've been researching for days on this topic, and you describe perfectly the frustration I'm feeling trying to implement these whole whichcraft that are forces, vectors and such.
LUCKILY, I stumbled upon your other entry on 'Arcade car physics' and I was wondering if you could maybe explain a bit how did you approach the whole steering thing.
I too watched the Space Dust Racing video for reference and tried implementing the torque they mention, failing miserably.
I might be late to the party, but I do wanna understand how this works, instead of abandoning the idea and rolling with a simpler, not so exciting movement.
PD: Great work with the spring physics post btw