Comprehensive, thanks. How's your patience level? Mind a few more questions?
"Open-wheel"? Versus "Closed-wheel"?
"Purpose-built" I think I get. Built for the purpose of racing versus "stock car", I believe. A stock car is "an automobile that has not been modified from its original factory configuration" which even to this uneducated mind comes off as a crock. NASCAR cars look a bit more like my car, but that's it.
I looked up "rallying": Rallying is a wide-ranging form of motorsport with various competitive motoring elements such as speed tests (sometimes called "rally racing" in United States), navigation tests, or the ability to reach waypoints or a destination at a prescribed time or average speed. Rallies may be short in the form of trials at a single venue, or several thousand miles long in an extreme endurance rally."
None of NASCAR, IndyCar, or Formula 1 is like that; the fastest car wins. I ran across
this article that points out the difference between Rally Racing vs. Circuit Racing (which includes NASCAR, IndyCar, and Formula 1, I believe). Thus Rally could have been a fourth branch of auto racing that I could have asked about, yes?
Heh, now a rally stock car may
really resemble my car if this picture is at all typical.
So, NASCAR is a separate beast but I am under the impression that IndyCar and Formula 1 are of the same species. I remember when I asked in the Forumula 1 thread about the Indianapolis 500, you were decidedly dismissive. Indeed, it's like PGA and LIV only that the newer Formula 1 has surpassed the older IndyCar, unlike the golf situation (yet). Agree with this assessment?