on TV the cars just look like they're going slower than I know they are. My head is telling me those NASCAR cars are currently going 180mph, but on my TV it looks like they're going about 45.
Probably the same reason that distant celestial and geographic objects (rising moon, setting sun, mountains) look huge when you see them with your eyes, but appear like tiny specks when photographed with a standard camera lens. Human perceptions of things like speed and scale are amorphous, and can be heavily influenced by context and environment.
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