Final answer:
A vehicle will tend to go straight around a sharp curve unless acted upon by an unbalanced force, according to Newton's first law of motion, making the statement true. No lateral force is felt in an ideally banked curve. Cutting the corner helps race car drivers maintain higher speeds.
Step-by-step explanation:
When driving around a sharp curve, a vehicle will tend to go straight due to inertia, which is a property of matter described by Newton's first law of motion. This law states that an object in motion will stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. In the case of a car on a curve, the unbalanced force is provided by friction between the tires and the road, which creates a centripetal force pulling the car toward the center of the curve. Without this force, as would be the case if the car encounters ice, the car would continue in a straight line off the road, tangent to the curve. Therefore, it is true that a car will tend to go straight on a sharp curve if there is no centripetal force acting on it.
When a curve is ideally banked for a car's speed, the normal force from the car seat provides the necessary centripetal force. As a result, you don't feel yourself being thrown to either side, because the force exerted on you by the car seat is directly upwards, aligning with the centripetal force. Race car drivers often take the inside path on a curve, known as cutting the corner, because it allows them to maintain a higher speed due to the shorter distance and optimal banking.