My Cheap Gear Hunt Begins
Right, so I woke up determined to find Bathurst-worthy gear that wouldn’t shred my wallet. Goal: decent sim gear under five hundred bucks total. Figured other folks might wanna know what actually works without needing a bank loan. Started digging through endless online shops and old forum rants. Man, sorting the real deals from the hype was tougher than turn two at Mount Panorama.
Testing the Waters (Literally)
First step: the wheel. Grabbed that Logitech G29 everyone whispers about. Took it outta the box – felt plasticky, but solid. Hooked it up to my rig. Spent a whole evening just messing with the force feedback settings on the BMW M3 around Bathurst. Clunked over the curbs near The Dipper, and yeah, you feel every bump. That leather grip started bugging me after hour three though – got sweaty palms just thinking about Bathurst’s length. Wiped it down, kept going. Decent starter wheel, no doubt. Sits around $250.
Pedal Power Matters
Stuck with the G29’s pedals first. Bad move. Felt like pressing soggy cardboard. Returned the whole set and tried pairing just the wheel base with Thrustmaster T-LCM load cells. Found ’em for $200 on a stupid sale. Strapped ’em down. Night and freakin’ day difference! That brake pedal needed serious leg muscle – like stopping an actual boulder rolling down Conrod. Took practice, but man, felt so much more control under heavy braking zones. Worth every penny saved skipping fancy dinner that week.
The Seat & Shifter Situation
My old dining chair? Total joke wobbling through Skyline. Scoured local second-hand junk piles. Snagged a beaten-up Playseat Challenge for fifty bucks. Guy said his cat scratched it. Whatever, it folds. Bolted everything onto that shaky frame. Added a no-name short-throw shifter I found kicking around (another $40). Felt like driving a tuna can, but it held. Whole setup?
- Logitech G29 Wheel: $250
- Thrustmaster T-LCM Pedals: $200
- Beat-Up Playseat + Shifter: $90
Boom. $540. Slightly over budget? Beat the price police – sold my old crappy pedals for forty bucks. Back under five hundred. Felt proud.
Track Day Disaster (Sorta)
Took my Frankenstein rig for a proper Bathurst grind last Tuesday. Ran twenty laps straight. Seat creaked like grandma’s knees. Pedals stuck a little after heavy braking into Hell Corner – blamed pizza crumbs? Wheel vibrated so hard near Forest Elbow it rattled my teeth. But guess what? Lap times weren’t awful! Actually felt connected. Pushed too hard on lap twenty-one, spun out spectacularly chasing some alien ghost time. Tank slapper into the wall. Felt like a total squid. But hey, the cheap gear survived!
Why bother sharing this messy journey? Because sometimes, you grab what you can just to get on track. Whole thing proved you don’t need gold-plated gear to feel that mountain rush. My wallet survived. Rig still smells faintly of desperation and old cheese, but it runs Bathurst. Might upgrade the seat… eventually.
