What are some good, recent racing games for the PC?

I don't often play racing games, but of late I'm in the mood to pay one on my PC . The Need for Speed games have gone down the drain in terms of quality, with the notable exception of Hot Pursuit 2010 (which was excellent). Tried Need for Speed Rivals, and it turned out to be one highly annoying piece of crap due to its excessive focus on silly objectives (like jam x number of racers, wreck y number of cops etc.) rather than actual racing. I keep hearing names of titles like Blur and Split Second, but I don't know how good they are because I don't play racing games regularly.

I just want to play a fairly recent (released within the last 5 years) single-player racing game which is primarily focused on racing rather than useless objectives like in NFS Rivals. Car customization and performance upgrades are a welcome bonus, but its not really a deal-breaker for me if such options are unavailable. Please recommended some such racing games. Thank you.

P.S. Please don't recommend Forza, Gran Turismo or other console exclusives, because I'm exclusively a PC gamer, and haven't owned a console since the N64 days.

Grid 2 is the only game that comes to mind.

i'd say Grid 2 or Dirt 3.

Thanks for your responses! Much appreciated. I just tried the original Race Driver Grid, and I found it a bit too tough for my liking (although I played with with an XBox 360 controller). It feel more like a simulation than an arcade racer, but its good and maybe I just need some practice. Anyway, are GRID 2 and Dirt 3 also this tough? In that case, are there any arcade-style racers with moderate difficulty, which I can try?

Next car game. Only in beta I think though.

Not really that into racing games but some friends on Steam have been trying to get me to buy Assetto Corsa, they seem to like it a lot.

Also look out for Project C.A.R.S:

GRID 2 is far more forgiving than its Predecessor and DiRT 3 has a robust set of Driver Aids that would will keep you on the track.

Split Second Velocity.... I played this on my PC a while back. Its fantastic but this is not the type of game thats fun to play agains the AI because its heavily scripted and cheats like a hooker in heat.. You need humans for it to be fun.

Note none of these games have customizing.

For a more arcadey experience there's Burnout Paradise, there are also the F1 games.

Burnout paradise is great and I also like grid 2 a lot.

I personally loved Rivals, I've played it with a friend so that might be the biggest plus about this game, I also enjoyed it alone so the game is very good IMO by itself.

Aside that you can try to play DiRT2 and GRiD or basically their whole series are excellent ones.

NFS Shift 2 is excellent simulator, if you're into such theme.