Discussing Driving Position and Ergonomics

What is the best position for a wheel? I’ve heard wrist length of an extended arm, or maybe that’s for a regular road car. I know racing wheels are set closer. I recently got a severe case of tendinitis in my shoulder from weight training followed by long sim racing sessions. It’s embarrassing to admit that I hurt myself playing video games Going forward I should make sure I have this set correctly.

 

I guess a lot can be written here with theoretical information and lessons, but instead I will tell you how I managed the best position for myself.
I was also trying different positions and variants and aways there were no perfect.

So I decided to go "real". Found a good photo of real gt3 car with pilot sitting inside. I "measured" the distances and angles, and replicated it as close as possible on my rig. Initially it felt a bit strange, but very quickly I get used to it, and now I feel very comfortable and dont get pain or something after playing.

If your rig allow you enough adjustability, try this approach

p.s. later i will try to find the photo i used.

 

https://virtualracingschool.com/academy/iracing-career-guide/season-one/ergonomics/

 

The most important aspect is to have a comfortable and relaxed position imo.
All links above show a pretty good baseline.
However I found that 3cm here, a little different angle there can make quite a difference for being comfy.

Another aspect is your grip on the wheel. Underrepresented topic.
Many strains and bad driving come from being too tense there. Should also be relaxed.

Relax should be the word of the year anyway if I look at peoples attitudes ;-)

 

I got a shoulder injury from a combination of a wheel that had no FFB and mouse shoulder where I'd been holding my right arm over the mouse, not resting the palm on the table or anything for 20 years. I'm now using weight training to fix it.

I see this image online a lot. It's probably covered better in the boostedmedia video Anthonylroy posted.

 

My biggest issue is with ankle soreness from a very stiff brake pedal. I was left foot braking, keeping my heel on the heel rest and flexing my ankle to brake with the ball of my foot. I gather that's not the best - perhaps it's better to keep your ankle fairly static and push with your whole leg (without flexing the ankle much)?

 

"Race beyond matter" (might be miss-spelled) has a video about the optimum setup. I've set my pedals up as hanging or inverted and that has improved my braking a lot and also made it less painful for the knees.
I use the SRP pedals. https://www.simracing-pro.com/

 

I suspect that I actually damaged my back muscles in 2009 from too much online racing. I remember doing a few 2 hour endurance races, and the muscles were really aching by the time that I completed them. Subsequent to that, I experienced strange symptoms where my back muscles would feel like they were on fire maybe 20 minutes after eating every meal. This lasted for over two months, and it was extremely uncomfortable. I had to stop racing completely at that time, and I have not done an endurance race since!

 

I would guess yes. You'd be moving the work to your bigger muscle groups. You should avoid making joints do the work.

 

Yes! Do not brake using your ankle, especially when you have a load cell brake.
Always brake using your thigh muscles and keep your ankle stiff.

Look at Post #3 in this thread and the video by Boosted Media: "How to set up seating position correctly"
at 2:11 he starts talking about the pedals, how far they should be away, how your legs should not be full straight when pushing a pedal to the max and how to apply brake pressure (which muscles to use)

 

Wonder why the monitor is placed behind the wheelbase at this image. I've read that the monitor should be as close to your wheel as possible. This makes sense, since you get a more natural FOV (especially with an ultra-wide screen).

 

I would not want the wheel pressed up against the monitor. Mine is about two feet away.

 

I aimed to get the screen right up to the back of my wheelbase. Ideally it could be closer but Id also have to move it up wich would be no bueno.

Right now the MOTEC display lines up perfectly behind the wheel (with correct FOV) at around the same distance it would be irl.

Point of View


Feels pretty solid.

 

Do GT3 Cars have a fixed wheel position per car, ie distance to dash, vertical Angle, Height etc? if so, we could do with this data to replicate it in those rigs that can.

jat

J

 

I was talking to a friend about the monitor topic, in particular about curved screens, a few days ago. He made a valid point as he said that most of the curved screens have their optimal viewing distance at 1.5 to 3 meters in order to match the natural curvature of your FOV. However, this conflicts with getting the screen as close to your wheel as possible. What would you prefer? Ignoring the curvature radius and bringing the screen closer or sticking to the recommended distance?

 

Bringing the screen closer for sure. I have my 32" curved screen about 52cm from my face.

Also, you don't sit 1.5 to 3m from your windscreen when you're driving your car.

 

This is worth a read for those on a curved screen and How it affects the known fov calculators


Edit sorry wrong link

https://www.reddit.com/r/simracing/comments/jss4yh/lets_talk_about_fov_on_curved_monitors/

 

I love how the put that pedal plate downwards, after buying vertical load cells pedals I find myself looking for a similar solution, and all my simracing partners strongly disagree lol