BRASELTON, Ga.

BELTED tightly within the slender carbon-fiber sheath of a black missile known as the DeltaWing, I hurtled over a brow on the Road Atlanta racecourse and knifed down to a 90-degree left-hander at nearly 170 miles an hour.

Despite plenty of racetrack experience, I had my doubts about what would happen next. Critics say that this radical racecar — a bizarre-looking creation that resembles the Batmobile — is more likely to fly than to turn. Five days earlier, in fact, it had done just that, flipping into a guardrail after being hit by another car during a prerace test session.

I hammered the brake pedal and clicked the left shift paddle three times to select second gear as my body strained against already taut shoulder harnesses. The carbon-carbon brakes bled off speed at an astonishing rate, and by the time I had to turn left, I was able to glide through the corner with no more drama than easing into a shopping-mall parking space.

This is not to suggest that I’m a hero racecar driver; quite the contrary, to be honest. Instead, my point is that while the DeltaWing looks more like a futuristic mobility pod than a contemporary racecar, it drives like, well, a regular automobile.