Racing wheels are cool gaming peripherals, but are they really any better than a joystick for moving a car around a track? If you’re talking about the ThrustMaster NASCAR Pro Digital, the answer is a resounding yes. For the money, it’s hard to find a wheel that lets you carve up the virtual tracks with the surgical precision of this one.
For all its build quality, this wheel and pedal set is very basic. You get a 10.25-inch wheel with a rubber coating that provides excellent grip and four programmable buttons on the front. Two paddles are situated behind the wheel and should be within easy reach no matter how large your hands are. We used them for shifting, although there is a small shifter stick to the right of the wheel. This stick really only moves forward and backwards, effectively providing two extra buttons instead of a real gated shifter.
Real manual shifting would be impossible anyway, as the pedal unit has no clutch. It does have an accelerator pedal and a brake pedal that worked well in testing, although they aren’t the greatest set of pedals we’ve worked with. The accelerator is good, but the brake pedal barely moves. Both use heavy springs, making it easy to hold them at a specific point. Many pedals we’ve used have mushy springs that compress too easily, turning them into basic on/off switches. Another nice thing about the ThrustMaster’s pedals is they can be set up to work independently, making possible advanced maneuvers that require simultaneous brake and accelerator input.
The wheel unit locked to our desk like a vise with its quick-release clamps. Once secured, we hooked the cord from the pedals to the wheel and connected the cord from the wheel to the USB (universal serial bus) port on the back of our computer. In a nice touch, the cord has a splitter that terminates in a USB connector and a serial port connector, so you can use either interface. We recommend USB if your computer supports it and you aren’t using MS-DOS games.
Loading up a few games, we found the wheel was phenomenal. It had just the right amount of resistance to avoid twitchiness yet wasn’t so tight that quick wheel reversals were hampered. The wheel was self-centering, which further accelerated things when we needed to reverse a turn. Right and left movement was absolutely smooth, and in no time we were running with the pros in NASCAR Racing 3. Even when used with arcade-like games such as Need for Speed: High Stakes, the precision of the wheel helped us dodge oncoming traffic and slither around roadblocks with an ease that a joystick could never provide. Simply put, the ThrustMaster NASCAR Pro Digital wheel transforms driving games. –T. Byrl Baker
Pros:
- Solid build quality
- Wheel has a great feel
- Smooth operation
- Extremely precise
Cons:
- Brake pedal has limited travel
- Stick shift is a little hokey
