Thanks for all the nice comments. My best time is 13.78, so those of you stuck around 17 seconds will have to put in some more effort 
I’ve added some stuff to the game, mainly the option to generate random tracks (and save/load them). Also I added mouse controls for one player, in case keyboard sharing gets uncomfortable. Furthermore, there’s a fullscreen mode and slightly different track graphics.
The game still starts up with the same default track, and the gameplay code/simulation hasn’t changed.
Download here: soltcras.zip
Cool, it works for me under Linux with Wine, though the graphics are a little messed up. The cars are just white lines with a point at each end, and the track is red with a bunch of green flickery dots near the top. I can’t test under Windows at the moment…