For those that haven't touched VR mode, the problem is immediately obvious upon starting the game. Here's what the main menu looks like in VR mode compared to flatscreen:
And for good measure, here's the brightness setting page in both VR and flatscreen:
And yes, you can turn that setting down in VR mode which makes the menus look good, but doing so utterly crushes the dark areas once you actually get into a stage. So this is what stages look like in VR compared to flat screen at the default 1.0 brightness setting:
It seems when actually in a stage the brightness issue is a different one, as leaning forward so that your chin is touching the steering wheel actually looks good, but note how bright the bright areas are at a normal seating position, the trees in the distance beyond the starting gate in particular are glowing so brightly that it's impossible to see where the tops of them end.
All pics were taken at default medium settings, VR pics were cropped and scaled to reasonably match the flatscreen views but no other editing was done. I've included the unedited vr pics below for anyone who cares to see those.
Anyway, as I asked in the title, is there any good workaround for the VR brightness issue, and has there been any suggestion it will ever be patched?