Thinking about how American roadways are the "great freedom" of owning a car, and yet, we are so restricted on these roadways (for good reason of course). The irony is the freedom felt when a car enthusiast hits a racetrack. Though confined by walls, nearly all gloves are off. You can do the very things on a track that would land you in jail on a great American highway (or backroad). That's irony right?
There aren't any dairy queen parking lots to do burnouts out of on a racetrack though.
You don't need to break laws to enjoy the open road.. an old American car with a V8 and a Skynyrd greatest hits tape is all you need to enjoy the freedom of the backroads of this great country.
If you don't think America's roadways grant freedom to the individual, I dare you to throw a dart at a map of the lower 48, pack for two weeks, and go there. Within a few days, you could travel from Manhattan to Hollywood, with nothing stopping you but your own abilities and money for gas and lodging. If that isn't freedom, I don't know what is.
You've all entirely missed the point here. (Forever a lone wolf...)
I think Spiderman's uncle said it: With Freedom comes great responsibility... or something like that. 
However, without that responsibility, we'd have roads like the old autobahns. And that would be crazy.... 
Trackmouse wrote: You've all entirely missed the point here. (Forever a lone wolf...)
I'm with you! On public roads, you risk various sorts Bad Happenings if you hold WOT for more than a few seconds, brake at threshold, or corner fast enough to generate slip angle. But on the big track it's just you and your machine and all the speed the two of you can muster. Maximum performance driving is, for me, a very Zen experience; almost medative and more therapudic than anything I have ever done.
I think I understand where you're coming from, but my one open track day was much more tightly controlled than my drive to work this morning. Now, perhaps that's because I was in the green group and had (basically) a cop riding in the car with me, or maybe it just seems that way because the laws at the track were new to me. In either case there are traffic signals (lights or flags,) traffic control (blend lines out of pits, you can't run backward,) and vehicular equipment requirements. In either case if you break the rules you could face monetary penalties and have your ability to drive there revoked. Either one might have criminal repercussions in today's litigious society as well.
I think the biggest different in freedom is the freedom to go as fast as you want on the track. Well, until you approach a slower car and have to follow the laws of the sanctioning body for passing...
I disagree because of the different forms of Motorsport. For instance, on a track I can't pit maneuver my fellow racer, I certainly can't do that on a freeway. But at a demo derby, it's free game. Heck, even some dirt tracks allow it.
If I want 200mph, I can't pull that at an autocross, certainly not a "free"way. But at my local drag strip or oval track, it's free game.
I can't test my ability to pass traffic in a corner at the drag strip, and certainly not on a freeway, back road, etc. but my local track day says "free game" as long as I pay the price. (More irony: money buys freedom?)
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