All the checkpoints on the racing parcours are rings and they even used to be closed when you arrived (maybe they still are, but at least they open earlier now).

Seeing how in real life, every effort is made so that racing pilots have every chance of survival, why would you ever put lethal obstacles in their way? We practically cancel a race if there is so much as a tin can on the racing parcours to avoid accidents. Apparantly in the future it's considered good fun and sporting to make sure there are plenty of walls and obstacles to slam into, nose first. At jet-speeds, I don't think that's such a good idea for pilot health.

Before racing came out, I expected it to be a holographic parcour, where the racing route was projected in your HUD, safely in outer space where you couldn't slam into a building of civilians. Perhaps even between multiple planets or star systems. I didn't expect it to be flying through a sky-scraper vilage eat break-neck....make that break-everything or even pulverize-everything speeds.

But then again, every ship, even a 100% racing ships comes with weapons. They even upped the loadout on the 350R to Omnisky VI, on par with every other 3xx ship. So I suppose racing is for people with a deathwish only?