Community Question | Your First Sim Racing Wheel

[Paul Jeffrey]

Us sim racers tend to quite like our toys... from rigs, to wheels, pedals, button boxes, VR headsets, apps, software, PC's and plenty of stuff in between.... and for those of us lucky enough to own a wheel, I'd love to know which one was your first...

Not everyone runs with a wheel and pedals, but of those of us that do, I'd like to know which one was your first, and what you thought of that hardware and how in impacted your experience playing racing games and simulations.

For my part, my very first wheel was the little white plastic Microsoft Xbox 360 wireless unit - I thought that was the absolute pinnacle of technology back in the day. Oh, how the hobby got serious after that!

Although ownership of a racing wheel came late on for me, I also clearly remember playing IndyCar Racing over at my mates house using a really old, spring force PC wheel. That piece of kit brought the whole experience to an absolutely unthinkable level of immersion. The passage of time has dulled my memory of its name now, but suffice to say I was very, very envious of that bit of hardware...

Anyway, have fun reliving days gone by in the comments section below!

 

[Turk]

I can't remember the first one, I think it was some variant of cheapo thrustmaster wheel pedal combo. It only turned 180 degrees, I could feel every cog as I turned it.

I'm pretty sure I went from that to the Fanatec forza wheel and whatever the cheapest pedals they had at the time. I drove that wheel to death, by the time I replaced it the FFB wasn't working at all. It was a comical thing to use though, half way through a race it would inevitably come away from the desk and I'd try to get it back on. Or I'd push myself away from the table while braking. Got all sorts of sprains and pulled muscles from that desk setup and lack of FFB.

After that I decided to get the whole rig setup and I went for the most expensive wheelbase option at the time, the clubsport v2, luckily for me I purchased just as that went out of stock and ended up getting the V2.5 sent to me instead. I went for the most robust wheelbase, because I saw how plastic isn't really up to rough and tumble of sim racing. It's still my current setup. I'll drive it until it dies, which I hope is a few more years yet.

 

[BSH]

A second hand G27

 

[pai]

Logitech Formula Force GP

I bought it in 2002 to use it with GT3 on PS2 and other racing games on PC (there was also a dedicated PS2 wheel with PS2 connector but i got this one cause it has USB connection and could be used on PC too) i used it until 2012 when i bought the Logitech G27 i still use now

Same one for me. Had to wait until I had a job to buy one, back in 2006, got this one used for half the price, but was in practically mint condition. Still have it on a box. Still works!

 

[Aaron Markham]

Thrustmaster Formula T2:

Replaced it with my current Logitech G25 around 2008.

 

[Peter Koslowski]

1. Driving Force GT (too weak)
2. Thrustmaster T300 (too weak)
3. Fanatec CSW V2 (too weak)
4. Fanatec DD2 (too strong, but good!)

 

[BrettSinclair1]

DFGT, still have it

 

[Gregz0r]

That Thrustmaster Formula T1 in the header picture, in fact that picture looks eerily familiar

Technically speaking though this was my first ever wheel for racing and on the Amiga 500, the 'Freewheel' which you held up in the air and after 5 laps your arms ached like hell!

HAHA I had The FreeWheel for my Atari ST, after seeing Violet Berlin using it on Bad Influence, lol. I used it for Nigel Mansell's World Championship and Geoff Crammond's first F1GP game. It wasn't analogue in any way, but you needed a lot of imagination back in 1992!
I used a corner of a wooden box to provide something to set it against, lol.

 

[odiopower]

Logicool Gt Force
AKA the Japanese version of the Logitech Wingman presented for Gran Turismo 3

 

[Alex Mentxaka]

Logitech G25!

 

[jackyboi]

my first wheel was a cheap HORI racing wheel, it only had 450 degrees of rotation and no ffb, it was horrible, i upgraded to a g920 shortly after

 

[balage06]

Logitech Formula Force GP

 

[nezeiges]

Microsoft SideWinder Precision Racing Wheel but I could not get it working with Win98 so i switched it for the Thrustmaster Modena with the pedals on the wheel even my handicaped son could play a racing game.

The problem with the sidewinder was Win 98. I had a lot of other problems and I reinstalled win 98 and all problems where solved. So probably the Sidewinder would have worked to

 

[Gevatter]

The first was a Thrustmaster Nascar Pro, got that in the mid to late 1990s. That was before FFB was even a thing. I played a lot of N.I.C.E. 2, Cart Precision Racing and GP Legends with that.
Then Logitech Momo Force -> Logitech G25 -> Fanatech CSL Elite PS4 -> Accuforce V2 Pro -> SimuCube 2 Pro. I basically doubled the price each time I got a new wheel

 

[BillingsRacer]

I remember the wheel quite lovingly but the maker, hmm... I think it was Thrustmaster. It was a bit smaller in diameter than is common now, and had two paddles geared to pots, so you had analog throttle and brakes. Sadly they were wired together and therefore operated on a single axis. No force feedback, just a piece of bungee cord to center the wheel. But boy oh boy did it ever wake up Papyrus Indy Car Racing, and NASCAR 2! So much more "realistic" than the joystick I was using before that, and a lot easier to drive too! Ran things on a Packard Bell Pentium 100 and Windows 95, which was new then. Wow, a long time ago but seems so near. When GPL came out a few years later I bought a Microsoft Sidewinder FF wheel and was transported to hog heaven. Dell Pentium II at 350MHz and a Voodoo 3 card. With a 15 inch monitor I could run 800x600, man did that look amazing! Of course it was pitiful or worse by today's standards. What a world we live in!

 

[jcarrasco]

A thrustmaster universal challenge wheel i got when i was 3-4 years old, i played the heck out of it in cmr 1, then hot bored of it because i sucked at it. 10 years later got bored of trying to play simracing titles on my gamepad and i got myself a dfgt, best purchase ever since it got me into real sim racing. Then went to a g27 and now I use a t500.I dont know which one would be my real first wheel, since the tm was quite bad.

 

[Lino Carreira]

My first was exactly the T2 from thrustmaster ... then sidewinder then a series of logitechs, red momo and several Black ones, DFGT ,skipped G25 and G27 era then the T500, CSW2.5 and finnaly DD1

 

[Eckhart von Glan]

Matchbox Steer n' go...
View attachment 364442

oh my, my wet dream at age eight, I think I pored over that catalogue page for hours every day. Never got one because they never appeared in a shop round the corner and that was what you were limited to.

 

[durandal]

sidewinder wheel by microsoft

 

[Sotirismac]

Just this!!!

 

[Kurt Woods]

Had the same without FFB. Worked for decade

I had the same as well, was great on GTR back then.