My First Rigs: A Comedy of Errors
My journey into sim racing started with the legendary Thrustmaster 458 wheel. At the time, I loved it. I’d sit for hours modifying cars on Need for Speed, my child soothing in his bouncer nearby. But sitting on the floor with a wheel on my lap, halfway across the living room, wasn’t exactly immersive. I decided I had to ‘grow up’ and sold it for pennies.
A few years later, the itch returned. I and a friend would race all night on F1 or Forza, battling for thousandths of a second on a controller. It wasn’t enough. I marched to the local Asda and returned with another Thrustmaster 458 and a wobbly laptop table. For weeks, I blamed the table for my poor lap times. My wife wasn’t too pleased with the new living room centrepiece, either.
I had an ingenious idea: I would build a folding wheel stand that would outperform anything on the market! To be honest, it was impressive for what it was. I made a half-decent folding stand with thumb turns for quick setup and takedown. Did it do the trick? Sadly, no. The non-force feedback wheel just didn’t have the magic. The rig gathered dust, and I sold the whole lot for about £30. In hindsight, a force feedback wheel was the one thing I was missing.
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