Having driven 20,000 street and track miles on one of my Sport Bikes from new (Ninja 900), Formula Ford open wheel racer @ Oahu HI Skip Barber Racing (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formula_Ford), and Full Fendered Pontiac GTOs, TAs, Catalina's, etc. down the 1/4 mile and Gymkhana's I can tell you that those open wheel cars garner drivers' respect for barriers that are parallel to the drivers head height. For me it was unnerving.
I'd had no problem going over 150mph at will on the Ninja and 2-wheels, but those barriers and exposed suspension "bits & pieces" of the Formy FORD/ F1 / Indy can be claustrophobic and when driving amongst others who "don't respect" the vehicle spacing can become interesting immediately.
This from the same guy who's 1st street car was a '68 440cid Chrysler New Yorker who learned how to drift the car on ice, snow, mud and dirt back roads and pavement. Parallel parking? Piece-O-The-Proverbial-Cake!
Banging fenders should be a comfort to "Princess D"....
