On October 14th, iRacing is releasing NASCAR 2025 to the console market.  Long touted as the most realistic racing simulator for the PC market, iRacing will bring online racing with fellow virtual NASCAR racers from the safety and convenience of your living room.

What makes this announcement exciting is that it appeals to the NASCAR fan who already has a PS5 or Xbox hooked up to their living room TV.  This is significant because the barrier to sim racing just got a lot easier.  You no longer need a high-end computer to experience a racing simulator; Just a gaming console, a frame, a racing wheel, and a set of pedals.

I’m going to show you how to get started and be ready to sim race on the release date.

My setup is extreme and expensive, but not as much as the PC side of sim racing. When I sim race, I want to increase immersion, remove the things that make me forget that I am sim racing. Unnatural driving controllers, uncomfortable seating positions, and lack of natural driving positions are removed from my experience. The result is sim racing nirvana.\

Increasing Immersion

Imagine transforming your living room into the current NASCAR Cup track, where you can experience the excitement of high-speed racing without needing any prior technical knowledge. This is the world of sim racing!

It’s not the cheapest route, but in the end, you’ll have a sim racing setup that comes as close as possible to a real-life driving simulator. Drivers like Max Verstappen, Dale Earnhardt Jr., and Carson Hocevar all use them, and if you watch behind-the-scenes footage from NASCAR, you’ll see that nearly every driver trains on a simulator.

You can do this one of two ways:

I am going to show you how I built mine.

Requirements

I came up with the following requirements:

As you can see, you can take your simulation rig to the extreme. I am going to show you how I built a modestly basic setup that I can expand upon to allow for unlimited flexibility and comfort.

Frame

Most serious sim racing frames are made out of 8020 aluminum extrusions. These extrusions are like an adult erector set. They bolt together with industry-standard fasteners, allowing you to connect pretty much anything you want to your frame. This flexibility becomes evident as you grow your racing hobby and start adding additional peripherals.  You can buy your pieces from Amazon or eBay, but several manufacturers make pre-built frames for you to assemble.  If you're lucky enough to have a Micro Center nearby, they have an assembled one in-store for you to try before you purchase.

Simlab GT EVO

SimLab is a recognized industry leader in sim racing by providing high-quality, strong, highly adjustable cockpits for the sim racing industry. The local Micro Center is a reseller for Simlab and carries accessories for their cockpits. After testing the Simlab GT1 Evo demo simulator, I ended up getting a great deal on one of their sales. The benefits of this frame are that it includes a wheel mounting platform, a shifter mounting bracket, and a monitor mount. The only thing that it didn’t have was the seat brackets and seat.

Microcenter also sells the seat brackets.

Sim Racing Seat

Most 8020 sim racing frames do not come with a seat, but a sim racing seat is relatively easy to find on Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, eBay, or Amazon. I wanted something new that would match my sim racing rig and room, so I went with the NRG Prisma Ultra. This real-world seat is made from fiberglass and easily mounts to my rig using standard mounting brackets.

I find that the NRG seats are one of the most popular seat options based on comments in the sim racing community forums.


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Wheel and Pedals

Don’t even think about using the controller; you need a wheel and pedal set. Offering a more immersive and precise experience, using realistic force feedback that simulates road feel and car dynamics. High-quality construction, adjustable settings, and an ergonomic design provide precise control and comfort during long sessions. With the ability to fine-tune sensitivity and force feedback, a wheel helps develop better technique, develop consistency, and improve lap times. The right wheel and pedal set elevates your racing experience by delivering a more authentic, reliable, and engaging driving simulation.

Unlike Windows PC sim racers, console users have a much smaller selection of wheel and pedal sets for sim racing. There are a few wheel and pedal manufacturers that offer console solutions that I can also use on the PC, should I decide to expand my sim racing to the PC world. A dedicated wheel significantly enhances control, feedback, high-fidelity realism, and immersion on the virtual track.

iRacing has not revealed what wheels will be supported in the upcoming release, but I would be surprised if they don’t support the Logitech G Pro because it is one of the more popular wheels supported on the PlayStation 5.

Load Cell Pedals

Before we go any further, let’s talk about load cell pedals and why I want this feature in the pedals I use. A load cell brake pedal measures how hard you press, not how far you press. In sim racing, this is important because real race cars use hydraulic or mechanical brake systems where stopping power comes from pedal pressure, not travel distance. This makes braking more realistic, consistent, and precise by helping drivers hit the same brake force every lap, improve corner entry control, and build muscle memory just like in a real car. Using a load cell pedal is the difference between “pushing a button” and “actually feeling the brake.” The Logitech G Pro pedals support load cell brakes.

Wheel Newton-Meters (Nm)

When researching wheels, you will notice the term Nm. In sim racing, the Nm (Newton-meters) rating on a steering wheel tells you how much torque, or twisting force, the wheel can produce. The higher the torque, the stronger and more detailed the force feedback feels by letting you sense things like bumps in the road, the weight of the car, and when the tires are starting to lose grip. A wheel with more torque doesn’t just feel stronger; it gives you more “headroom,” so you can turn it down for comfort without losing detail. Too little torque and you might miss important feedback, but too much can be tiring if not adjusted to your environment. You can think of Nm like horsepower for the steering wheel; the right amount makes it realistic, immersive, and easier to control. The Logitech G Pro wheel supports 11 Nm, which I find just the right amount for sim racing in Gran Turismo 7.

Logitech G Pro

This is the wheel and pedal set that I use for all of my sim racing on the PlayStation 5. Support for load-cell pedals, 11Nm of force feedback, support for the Logitech RS Shifter, and Trueforce feedback lead the features in Logitech G Pro’s product line. According to iRacing, all of these features should be available with the release of NASCAR 25.

The Logitech G Pro Pedal set includes a load cell brake pedal providing valuable braking feedback because it measures how hard you press the brake, not how far you push it. Real race cars work the same way: braking performance is based on pedal pressure, not pedal travel. This makes braking in a sim much more realistic and consistent, which helps you develop muscle memory so you can hit the same brake force every lap, providing a more authentic racing feel and increasing immersion.

One of the biggest benefits of the Logitech G Pro wheel and pedal base plates is that they have mounting points to secure them directly to the 8020 frame. This makes a huge difference in immersion because nothing moves when you’re racing. A securely mounted wheel doesn’t flex or shift when you’re wrestling through a corner, and pedals stay securely in place under the heavy braking force of a load cell. Without this, wheels can slide on desks, pedals can creep forward on the floor, and you lose both precision and realism. When everything is locked into the rig, the feedback from the wheel and pedals translates directly into your hands and feet, making the whole experience feel like a real race car.

Logitech G Pro NASCAR Wheel

I was lucky enough to get in on the early release of the MPI NASCAR wheel for the Logitech G Pro wheel. Paired with the wheel adapter, the MPI MP2-15 NASCAR wheel is just like the ones used in actual NASCAR stock cars. It’s the same size, shape, and feel that professional drivers use, wrapped in soft suede for comfort and control. Because it’s built to real racing standards, every turn, bump, and vibration in the game feels more realistic, increasing the immersion and helping me react just like I would in a real race car.

Unanswered Questions

We don’t yet know if NASCAR 25 will support PSVR2 or be able to access network data over UDP for SimHub support. If they unofficially support either one of them, then NASCAR 25 will be the console game to bring sim racing to the next level.

Now What?

Okay, you finished before NASCAR 25 is out, but there are plenty of console racing games to get you started.

I recommend Gran Turismo 7. GT7 is undeniably the most popular sim racing game, attracting hundreds of thousands of players daily and selling millions of copies worldwide. If you want to see what iRacing has been doing on the console, check out World of Outlaws Dirt Racing 24.