Trak Racer Shows Alpine F1 Wheel Replica, Aims To Be The Full Package

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Images: Trak Racer
With plenty of new gear on show, Trak Racer made it clear that it aims to be more than a sim racing rig manufacturer - the company could soon be a complete package.

To most sim racers, Trak Racer is most likely associated with rigs. Indeed, building sim racing cockpits is what the manufacturer has done for quite a while, but it wants to do more than that - and that was very obvious at ADAC SimRacing Expo 2024.

While the Australian company had a number of rigs on show, it also presented several pieces of hardware, some of which was already on show at Sim Formula Europe 2024 earlier this year. The company had brought their TR3 pedals, a sequential shifter, a handbrake, and two versions of an upcoming direct drive wheel base to Maastricht.

All of these re-appeared at SimRacing Expo, but they were joined by new gear as well. For one, Trak Racer had its own monitors on their rigs, with 34" ultrawides and 49" super ultrawides being their go-to.

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Up To 30 Nm Direct Drive​

The wheel bases, meawhile, were available in three versions and now feature LED strips at the top that can act as rev lights, for example. The three bases are capable of 12, 18 and 30 Nm of torque, respectively, and they were fitted with a brand-new wheel as well: Trak Racer has built a 1:1 replica of the steering wheels the Alpine F1 team uses in its cars.

And while the sequential shifter, handbrake and pedals had already been seen publicly before, Trak Racer's Global Business Development Manager Johan Akkerman hinted at the gear possibly being console-compatible in the future - just days after news broke that Asetek is aiming to have console gear available in 2025, non-PC sim racers could be headed to an unprecedented age of hardware availability for their systems.

Regarding the peripherals and monitors, Trak Racer CEO Matt Sten also pointed at 2025 for the first products to launch: The handbrake and shifter are likely to be availabe in Q1 of next year, with the wheels to follow in Q2 - "and then the direct drive bases", as Sten stated. "This is a whole new category for us, but we are excited as we got lots of new stuff."

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TR40 S - Competitively-priced Entry-level Rig​

On the more established side of things, Trak Racer also showed a new entry-level rig - althoug it did not look entry-level to us. Using aluminium extrusion and sporting an integrated monitor mount, the Trak Racer TR40 S is set to retail for less than €300 without a seat - an extremely competitive price.

A new two-piece GT seat is also on the way, and new colors will be available for the TRX rig. A V2 of the TR8 Pro rig is also on the horizon, which will be available in silver and black. Finally, a new hybrid seat bracket will allow sim racers to mount both GT and formula-style seats with the sae set of brackets.

Clearly, Trak Racer is going down the one-stop shop route, with complete simulator set ups sporting their own products exclusively on the horizon in the not too distant future. We will keep you in the loop once we get our hands on potential review versions!

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What are your thoughts on the new Trak Racer hardware and the company's "full package" approach? Let us know in the comments below and join the discussion in our hardware forum!
About author
Yannik Haustein
Lifelong motorsport enthusiast and sim racing aficionado, walking racing history encyclopedia.

Sim racing editor, streamer and one half of the SimRacing Buddies podcast (warning, German!).

Heel & Toe Gang 4 life :D

Comments

@Trakracermatt Why no dpad/funky switch on the steering wheel?

Most games you need to be able to use an in game menu or navigate between things whilst not taking hand off wheel, a mouse isn't useful in game. It's a replica yes, but a d-pad/funky switch could have been implemented under the 'BB-' button for example.

Pretty much makes this wheel redundant for most sim users. Even Boosted media questioned the logic behind this on the last 'replica' steering wheel he reviewed for sim racing
 
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Dunno. There's something in the display that seems half-baked.
"Best Lap Time" slower than "Last Lap Time"? :thumbsdown:
OK, so I'll die for the immersion... even if the result is a role as a sore backmarker :D
 
@Trakracermatt Why no dpad/funky switch on the steering wheel?

Most games you need to be able to use an in game menu or navigate between things whilst not taking hand off wheel, a mouse isn't useful in game. It's a replica yes, but a d-pad/funky switch could have been implemented under the 'BB-' button for example.

Pretty much makes this wheel redundant for most sim users. Even Boosted media questioned the logic behind this on the last 'replica' steering wheel he reviewed for sim racing
We will be adding a funky switch for production model
 

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