I am a long-time apologist for the Gran Turismo series, and during the nearly infinite development process of Gran Turismo 5, I've often been called upon to defend a franchise that has struggled to find a current-gen North American audience. Sure, fanboys like myself loved Gran Turismo 5: Prologue, but outsiders complained about its price (fair criticism that), and the lack of damage to crashed cars (yeah, they got us there too...). Today during Sony's press conference, we got our first tantalizing look at GT5, and I hav to say, I now can't wait for a game I already couldn't wait for.

Check this out:

Yeah, you saw that right. Those were licensed NASCAR vehicles driving around in a Gran Turismo game. And from the looks of one shot, the car was damaged. Oh my God, damaged vehicles in a Gran Turismo game?! Be still my beating heart.

Of course, this trailer was shown without any real lead-in, or any follow-up. So we, we patient and long-suffering fanboys, find ourselves in a novel, if somewhat familiar situation. Familiar in that we live in a world where Gran Turismo 5 is still languishing in development hell, but novel because Sony is finally showing video footage. I'm cautiously optimistic.