I tried it somehow back in the day (it might’ve been in a store) and it was absolutely amazing. Noticeably more polygons and higher frame rate than SuperFX games. The price was crazy, though. IIRC in Australia it was close to twice the price of an average Mega Drive game (like 1.7 or 1.8 times). As a kid that was way too much for me, especially for what was (aside from the 3D graphics) a very ordinary racing game (not really my taste even in the best case).

Several years ago I picked up a copy in Japan for just 100 yen. I didn’t particularly want the game per se, but knowing some of the history that OP outlined, I couldn’t pass it up at that price! However, even with retro game prices shooting up in recent years, the price of Virtua Racing for MD doesn’t seem to have ballooned as much as many other games, at least in Japan.