Sim racing allows passionate driving enthusiasts to drive high performance virtual racing cars from the comfort of their own homes. Steering wheel and pedals sets range from basic low end products to high performance racing products. Depening upon how serious your virtual racing career is will probably help you decide what sort of money you will spend on your racing products. A good example of the difference between low end pedals and better pedals probably in the middle of the market place can be seen below:

I was driving around Road Atlanta with a fellow sim racer in a practice session. Whilst we were driving round the lap we chatted about brake markers and were giving each other general observations that might help one another. We were talking about driving through turn 6 and then our entry into turn 7. I mentioned that I was braking, shifting the car into 2nd gear and then turning into turn 7. He tried it and spun. He kept trying it and taking it in 2nd gear made him spin everytime.



It turned out that we were using different virtual racing pedals. I was using Fanatec Clubsport pedals whilst he was using standard DFGT pedals. A few weeks later the said sim racer upgraded their pedals to clubsports and mentioned to me that they could now take turn 7 in 2nd gear and it worked nicely. This just proves that the same techniques with different sim racing high performance virtual racing products doesn't always produce the same results. I'm not saying that if you buy some better pedals you will instantly find speed, you may need to get used to the new pedals first, but they will definately give the chance to go quicker. If you don't have the talent then you will never find the speed.

Personally I generally only really practice and race single seater vehicles but sim racing or sim driving in the virtual world could allow for any vehicle in theory to be simulated. There are bus and truck simulators for professional driver training, essentially iRacing is a motorsports simulation to aid real world race drivers as well as the enthusiast.

Driving simulators are used for entertainment as well as for driver training. A lot of professional drivers will familiarise themselves with a track using the laser scanned iRacing tracks. Dale Earnhardt Jr said, "It's like deja vu everytime you go out on a race track. Before I come to Homestead this weekend you get on the racetrack in the sim and it's the real thing, so when you get out to practice you're mentally up to speed and ready to go."