a future for casual racers on PC vs. consoles?

OK, this group is full of hardcore GPL racers, but since the
comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action is completely taken over by first person
shooter drones, I thought I'd ask he

Is there a future for casual racing games on the PC? Maybe even
something that could be played with a gamepad (I do have a wheel, it's just
sometimes inconvenient to set up). I especially like games with a
deep-enough single player experience and rewards for playing. I don't
really mind having to unlock some of the content in the game, just as long
as it doesn't start out unbelievably hard (a flaw in alot of European
games).

I really enjoyed the older Need for Speed games. Now days for racing
games I'm mostly playing them on the XBox, like Project Gotham Racing 2 or
Rallisport 2 using a gamepad. The thumb stick takes some adjustment
compared to a wheel but the analog triggers I find are actually better than
gas/brake pedals, and at any rate is lightyears ahead of the PS2's dual
stick controller setup for racing games. Rallisport 2 though is twitchy,
though, compared to the PC Rallisport (which felt downright mushy, at least
with a wheel- you could adjust the settings for a gamepad something you
really cannot do in the XBox versions- only adjust wheather the control is
fast or slow ). I also got Forza Motorsports for free as part of the bundle
(I usually pick up console on the cheap and wait around to buy), but it
seems more like a game that deserves a halfway decent racing wheel (any
opinions if any exist on XBox?).