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When I was a kid, I always gravitated toward racing games in arcades. I especially liked when they had force feedback in their controls, allowing me to imagine some semblance of the virtual road through the wheel.
When I rediscovered these things as an adult with a gaming PC, I discovered I had missed a lot since I was Cruis’n the World. Over the past few years, as I’ve gotten more and more into sim racing, as it’s come to be called, I’ve gone through a series of Logitech controllers and gaming seats. They, and the games that I’ve played during my hundreds of hours in them, have utterly changed the way I think about the future of sports.
With laser-mapped tracks, ground-up simulations of engines, tires, brakes, and more, driving a sim racing car is oddly close to driving a real car (as far as I can tell, since I've never driven one). Except you can’t die, you can only embarrass yourself.
You can compete in real games at an extremely high level with actual racing drivers, who often use games as a training tool. The way three-time F1 World Champion Max Verstappen talks about sim racing—something nearly anyone can do for a few thousand dollars—you’d think it mattered as much or more than his time behind the wheel of real cars.
Getting Shifty
Photograph: Logitech
Logitech G Pro Racing Wheel$800 at Amazon (Wheel)$363 at Walmart (Pedals)$599 at Amazon (Playseat Trophy)
The Logitech Pro Series seat and wheels ($1,000) I’ve been testing for the past few months are real-car nice. The detachable faux-leather wheel has clicky metal shifting buttons on each side, among many others on the front, and the direct drive motor has a ton of force to simulate the harshest corners. You can even adjust the pressure that it takes for the brake pedal to bottom out, depending on what type of car you’re trying to emulate.
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The direct drive wheel and pedals can be put in any compatible racing seat but are best paired with Logitech’s special edition Playseat Trophy ($599). It’s a tubular metal chair that puts your butt lower to the ground and your feet higher in the air than you might normally in your regular car (unless you drive a Ferrari). It feels a bit like lying in a hammock; I fully understand how Lewis Hamilton says he can easily fall asleep in his molded F1 cockpit.
There are so many options besides this $1,600 Logitech setup, from the likes of Thrustmaster, Fanatek, and more. The setup I’m using isn’t the cheapest; you can get a decent wheel and pedals from Logitech, plus a cheaper Playseat chair for a couple hundred bucks. A cheaper setup served me well for years. As you might imagine, the Logitech Pro Series is also far from the most expensive setup. Hardcore drivers go so far as to add force feedback to their seats, with sim setups that can run into the tens of thousands of dollars. This ain’t that.
I set up the seat, wheel, and pedals in front of my TV, which I run to my PC using an extra long HDMI cable I got on Amazon. Then I use a cheap wireless keyboard and mouse (that I put next to my zesty beverage of choice) for each session. Most modern TVs have more than enough performance to be solid gaming monitors, especially ones with 120-Hz refresh rates.
Weekend Warriors
Loading up my game of choice (lately it’s F1 2023 or Assetto Corsa Competizione, a simulator of GT3 and GT4 cars that hits many of the world’s most famous tracks), I think about racing more like a trip to the gym or a study session than I do a video game.
It can be tedious and exhausting. Typically, I’m working on learning a track, trying to get my car dialed in with correct tire temperatures and pressures, and hoping some idiot doesn’t accidentally bash into me. Sim racing is decidedly not Mario Kart, though some online sessions I’ve been a part of beg to differ. It requires a lot of patience to not crash into a wall a half hour into a race or to try a risky overtake that could make you spin out.
The joys of racing are universal. I recall a time I won online at Monaco in the wet with a last-lap overtake. It was electric. I get to travel the rich debutante's universe of speed at a fraction of the cost. I have driven hundreds of laps around laser-mapped Monza in digital Ferraris—so many that I’m convinced I could handle a normal car around that track. Monaco, with its tight corners and gaping concrete barriers, takes me a few days (and zesty beverages) each season in the F1 games.
Sim racing has made me appreciate the real skill of actual racing drivers. I can’t press all the buttons I need—overtake, DRS, differential adjustment, shifting—in nearly any game I play. I rely on assists of all sorts to keep me in the hunt at all. Folks like Verstappen and Hamilton, among many other drivers across racing disciplines, do this stuff while enduring insane g-forces and temperatures with shockingly little variation, lap after lap. It’s like watching Joshua Bell calmly play classical violin in time while walking across hotter and hotter coals.
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For myself and many other faux racers, sim racing offers a great way to steer around the track without the risks (or expense, or weather, or lack of zesty beverages) of reality. You really can drive around world-famous locations and test your mettle with near-real pedal inputs and wheel inputs. Then you can go inside to feed your dog dinner.
When you get past how silly it is that a sport can be made this close to reality in this accessible a manner, it’s purely exciting. Hamilton’s half brother Nicolas is a physically disabled sim racer turned pro driver (with a modified car for his needs). Whether using a pad or wheel and pedals, sim racing means safer and more accessible wheel time for all, regardless of age, location, or physical capabilities. You can sign up for teams, tournaments, and many other events in major games. Sim racing games, like top-tier iRacing, even require you to earn safety points and spend time in lower-tier classes before you can race faster cars, just like in real life. Get good enough, and you might literally be racing against real F1 drivers on their weeks off.
Another great bonus with sim racing is that it's saving me money in another way: This sim setup is so good, it immediately silenced any midlife urge to buy a muscle car. When you can race your mid-engined Ferrari GT3 car between slices of pizza, crash it into a wall, and hit the Reset button, it’s hard to imagine changing a real one’s oil (let alone the front end). I entirely get why Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz drove a Volkswagen Golf for years.
One thing I did buy, after many hours and some raw hands: custom racing gloves in red, yellow, and green with my last name embossed on the wrists. I might never go to Monza in real life, but hey, you have to look the part. Even if it's just in my fantasies.
