Sixteen Year Old Sim Racer and his Racing Rig

We get emails, Facebook messages, forum posts, etc from sim racers almost on a daily basis showing us their setups. Seb Hawkins is a Sixteen year old sim racer from the UK that did what he could on a very tight budget to get on to the virtual track.

I’ll let him tell the story and share the Facebook post he sent me. Here it is…

Hi Guys,

Where do I start aha, your probably sent many messages but before I continue I just want to say that: What you do is incredible, the commitment and time you spend making videos and getting them out there is fantastic. Your website updates and the constant stream of information is inspirational. Everything you do is done properly and in the best effort of your audience which I thank you for!

I am a 16 year old living in the UK who is involved in Rallying and motorsport. The main reason to message you is to show you my own setup. You must get this all the time, but I think you may either have a laugh or be interested slightly in how I go about playing the games you do. Now.. This setup is not a professional setup nor one that gives realism etc, but I thought you might want to do an article or mention how sim racing can be done even with very little money at all.

Below is the setup I use:

I use an old Driving Force EX, which has had additional material added to the bottom to adjust the angle of the wheel. I use the pedals as well which, should i say do the job. wink emoticon

For shifting I use a usb keyboard with a lego, yes lego, sequential gearbox and handbrake system. This is surprisingly realistic even once you turn of the lights and get into the game.

I also use a homemade button box, this was made from a usb calculator which was re-soldered to allow it to work with an ignition button. I then wrapped it in carbon fibre vinyl to smarten it up.

And finally to run games like Rfactor and RBR, I use simply a laptop with a HDMI Monitor added to it. The laptop run Rfactor at a high frame rate and works surprisingly well after tweaking all the rfactor .ini files. This setup is so cheap, yet so fun and enjoyable. In the near future i would love to get my hands on something more professional, however other hobbies take over.

For sound I have a set of logitech speakers which comes with a bass box, this once turned up vibrated right through my floor. If I am not using speakers because my parents are sick of the amount of hours I spend improving lap times, I use a set of gaming headphones.

Like I have said the budget is low, so for now I am going to continue to watch your videos and wish I could have a go on your setup 😉

All the very best, and you can use the pictures for an fun article etc, just wanted to share my fun setup.

Kin Regards
Seb Hawkins