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WHY I STOPPED SIM RACING — AND WHAT PULLED ME BACK IN

A few years ago, I posted a video about why I quietly stopped sim racing.

At the time, I had just gone through a bunch of upgrades after my Logitech G29 setup, fallen deep into the rabbit hole, and then… slowly stopped racing altogether.

Recently, I found myself thinking about that period again, mostly because I’ve gotten back into sim racing and realized the reason I stopped had almost nothing to do with motivation.

It was friction.

My setup became too annoying to use.

And that got me thinking about how often hobbies quietly disappear, not because we stop loving them, but because the barrier to doing them gets just high enough that we slowly stop.

So I wanted to revisit that story: how I got deep into sim racing, the upgrades I made, why I drifted away from it for a while, and what eventually pulled me back in.

HOW IT STARTED

If you’ve been around the channel for a while, you probably know my Logitech G29 video is the thing that really got me into sim racing. It’s still by far the most-watched video I’ve ever made its at nearly half a million views and hopefully it sent a few of you down the same rabbit hole it sent me.

(And yes, before someone points it out again, I know an F1 car has eight gears. I was bouncing between games while recording footage and completely brain-farted. I promise I’ve gotten slightly better since then.)

For a while there, I was all in. I raced almost every day: iRacing, F1 2019, Assetto Corsa, pretty much anything that caught my interest. I wasn’t particularly good, but I genuinely wanted to improve, so I stuck with it.

One thing that helped a lot was Twitch. While I was learning, people would jump into chat and give me advice on corners, braking, racecraft — all the little things that aren’t obvious when you’re just starting out. It made learning feel way less overwhelming.

Of course, alongside the driving advice came something else: gear recommendations.

THE UPGRADE RABBIT HOLE

At the time, the Logitech G29 was the most I’d ever spent on a gaming peripheral. (That’s changed now that I’ve gone deep into custom keyboards.)

But once you start looking beyond entry-level Logitech or Thrustmaster gear, you quickly discover the endless upgrade rabbit hole and the recommendation I kept hearing over and over was: load cell pedals.

The only reasonably affordable option besides modding the G29 was around $320 CAD after shipping and duties, which felt expensive at the time. But after enough research (and enough people in chat convincing me), I finally understood why everyone swore by them.

A load cell brake measures pressure instead of pedal travel. And it turns out it’s much easier to consistently hit the same pressure than the same distance. That consistency matters.

So I ordered the Fanatec CSL Elite load cell pedals.

Then something funny happened.

A local viewer, huge shoutout to coalescence, offered me a great deal on a Fanatec CSW 1.0 wheelbase and Formula Black wheel. Since he was local, he basically dropped it off the next day.

Technically, the wheelbase ended up becoming my first real upgrade.

THE CSW 1.0: MY MIND WAS BLOWN

Even before plugging it in, the difference in quality was obvious.

The G29 suddenly felt like a toy.

The CSW 1.0 was mostly metal, heavy, solid. It felt like a serious piece of hardware.

But the biggest difference wasn’t actually the power.

It was the smoothness.

The G29 uses gear-driven force feedback, which can feel a little notchy. The CSW was belt-driven, and everything felt buttery smooth. I could feel understeer and oversteer earlier, react sooner, and actually understand what the car was doing.

That was the moment I finally understood why people obsess over better sim racing gear.

I also picked up a BMW GT2 rim because I wanted to experiment with oval racing and drifting, and a round wheel felt like the better fit.

WHERE IT ALL FELL APART

Here’s the problem: the setup became a pain.

The wheelbase was heavy and shook my entire IKEA desk. I had monitors mounted on an arm, and I genuinely worried something would eventually tip over. I even moved my PC onto the floor because I was nervous about all the vibrations.

Meanwhile, the load cell pedals arrived, and honestly, they lived up to the hype. They were probably the single best upgrade I made.

But ergonomics were killing the experience.

I still needed my desk for work, so every session meant mounting and unmounting everything.

To fix that, I bought a GT Omega wheel stand, thinking it would solve the problem.

Instead, it made things worse.

At the time, my setup lived in a tiny den with barely any extra space. To race, I’d have to move furniture around, drag the stand out, reposition my chair, and set everything up before I could even start driving.

The setup tax was brutal.

And then life happened.

Around the same time, I lost my job, so my focus shifted to interviews and figuring things out. The wheel stand got folded up and tucked under the desk.

Eventually, I landed a new job.

Then the Valorant beta dropped.

And if you know me, you know competitive shooters are my weakness. CS 1.6, CS:GO, Valorant. Suddenly all my free time went there.

Every now and then I’d think about sim racing again, but every time I considered setting everything up, I remembered how much effort it took.

And honestly?

After a long day, I just wanted to hit Play.

WHY I’M BACK

The funny thing is, sim racing never really left my mind.

I still followed Formula 1. I watched streams. I kept up with iRacing updates.

I just wasn’t racing.

What changed was space.

When my wife and I moved, I made sure the new place had room for a proper setup.

That changed everything.

Now I’ve got a dedicated rig and an ultrawide monitor. Racing is effortless. I slide the monitor over, hop into the seat, and I’m good to go.

No wheel stand.

No moving furniture.

No setup tax.

And honestly, that alone completely brought back the excitement.

The sim racing bug bit me all over again.

WHAT’S NEXT

I’ve been slowly upgrading things again moving to direct drive, newer pedals, and refining the setup over time.

And I do want to keep making sim racing content because I genuinely enjoy it.

I’m not an amazing driver and I don’t come from a racing background, which honestly might be what makes my perspective useful. I’m learning as I go, and I think there’s value in seeing gear and setups through the eyes of someone who’s still figuring it out.

If you’ve ever gone deep on a hobby, bought all the gear, and then let it collect dust for a while, trust me, I get it.

Sometimes the answer isn’t buying more stuff.

Sometimes it’s building a setup you’ll actually use.