It's A Guy Thing

My dad in law use to complain about his van and keeps saying I really need to buy a new steering rack for the van. And of course, I just said, well buy a new one then without even asking what is a steering rack and how does it look like..Lol..Well, You have to understand, I don't know much about vehicles at all. I can start the engine, drove it for a few miles and turn it off..Lol..Well I am just learning. Like I said, he needed this thing for the van and out of curiosity and wanted to see how it look like, my research brought me this ( shown in the picture ). Still I am kinda confuse on the figure but oh well, probably it's a guy thing. Don't even know the functions of it but definitely it is one important part of a vehicle to keep it running. My dad in law would be so proud of me because I did exert an effort to search what's his talking about or probably will just laugh at me..lol