I remember I was really bad at it a first, but once you get the hang of it you run through it pretty quickly.
The final battles are quite cool
Dunno if you can but if possible you should try one of Sega's Initial D games... they're awesome.
(Initial D Special Stage on PS2, Initial D Street Stage on PSP or Initial D Extreme Stage on PS3),
which are each based on various versions of the Initial D Arcade Stage games.