In general, racing games can't ever be quite like the real thing. What I mean is, there's always a screen in front of you (except in certain cases -- augmented reality comes to mind). Now, there have been many attempts at making racing games more and more realistic. An example are the shaders used in the games, which give you a nice feel for the surroundings, and the light coming in through your car's 'windows' make it seem like you're actually driving the car. The controllers you play the games with make a huge difference as well: sitting in front of a screen holding a standard console controller just isn't going to feel as real as holding a steering wheel (which acts exactly like a joystick, but it's the feeling that matters) and pressing pedals on the ground. People have also tried to make the steering wheel controllers more realistic by adding car-like resistance to the wheel, which I think is pretty cool.
Honestly, the most realistic thing I personally experienced was playing a racing game in the Motion Sim 4DOF Racing Simulator (not me by the way, some picture I found on Google):
It was amazing, so much fun! We'll see what the augmented reality future can bring us (Oculus Rift anyone?).