Thanks for testing and the feedback! <3
I just realized I mostly switch to 1st person view as I'm facing down on the track, and that's because I hadn't properly centered the isometric camera... The limited view is still annoying in a very Micro Machines kind of way.
I wish I could make the keyboard controls as good as gamepad controls - adding some interpolation to steering and acceleration might change things a bit, but it's probably better left snappy.
Sorry about the respawn bug! :--) I did just fix one related bug, and the fix was in the newest beta (7), but I'll do more testing on this, thanks for reporting!
Checkpoints are still something I might add. Currently you need to complete > 90% of the track for the lap to count, this is a hidden feature added to allow for some (accidental) skipping. Not the best solution, but I think it's just fine.
Thanks so much!