I did what you requested CAR ANALOGY, lifted front end of the ground, tight steering to the right just as you get past top dead center by a few degrees. Starts to gets tight and worse at full right lock.
Could find anything obvious that was bent. I removed the under trays, removed the boot from the rack arm and tie rod and smeared a fresh coat of grease on the geared rack arm (super scientific in my garage!), noticed after turning wheel lock to lock there were some cleaner (no grease marks on one section) versus other areas of the arm. Have to think that the rack arm is slighlty bent and causing the binding.
I guess the good news is there are several used rack and pinion units for sale and reasonably priced. I hate to throw money at the issue but I think this is the culprit by process of elimination.

 

Excellent troubleshooting. Another thing you can try is disconnecting the tie rod on the side that was hit, and see if the now free wheel will steer without effort through its range. This will rule out issue with ball joints. You can also make sure rack is still binding when that end is flapping in the breeze.

The ap1 rack has a quicker steering ratio than ap2. Its similar to CR.

 

Another great idea, will put it back up and rule out or find a bad tie rod/ball joint. Thanks again everyone!