I have been looking for a solution to using Racing Wheel on console in a living room setting. Ideally, one would want a full racing seat setup but in real world with significant other giving you the glare at the mere mentioning of race car seat in the middle of our family room that solution is out the window. Aside from the evil glare and sting eyes, you also have to content with space and those racing seat usually take up sizable real estate in your gaming / media room. I came aross Fanatec RennSport Wheel Stand announcement on Xbox 360 news site several months ago and decided to order one since it seems to be perfect solution to what I was looking for.
The ordering process is simple, however the company is actually based in Germany but they have local office and warehouse in California, USA. They only take Pay Pal (which I can understand for a small company, this is probably the most cost-saving way to take credit card payment on line). After sorting out payment problem (I hate Pay Pal for this very reason) they ship out the product and it arrives promptly since they have warehouse in the US so no long and expensive shipment from Germany.
The ReenSport Wheel Stand come pack neatly in one box and easy to assemble. The materials used for the stand is high quaility with solid feel. All the nuts and bolts fit together without any snag and I have the stand set-up in less than 10 mininutes. The only racing wheel I have currently is Microsoft Xbox 360 Official Racing Wheel and due to Microsoft poor design and their always proprietory only hardware setup, the stand require extra adaptor pieces to mount Microsoft Racing Wheel. The adaptor set is extra ($20.00), but I place the blame mostly on Microsoft poor design decision. I was using laptop computer stand to mount my Microsoft Racing Wheel but that never work too well because of the horrible mounting device Microsoft used and the cheap laptop stand was way too flimsy for something like racing wheel where there are always lot of movements and tends to cause the wheel to slip or the stand to move about.
So after installing the adaptor (it did not come with any instruction, but wasn't too hard to figure out), I got Microsoft Wheel to mount securely on the stand. The wheel fit perfectly to my surprise because the stand is design primary for Logictech wheels and Fanatec own racing wheel. I put in Forza 2 disc and take the stand (and wheel) for a test run. The wheel stay securely to the stand with no shifting or rattle. I then try out the wheel with more arcade type racer Burnout and Midnight Club LA and the stand hold up also in those games where the wheel get slam about a lot more.
The stand have several adjustments for height and angle so it should work quite well with most sofa or whatever seat you have already in your living room. The stand fold up nicely and easily and actually look nice enough to be leave out leaning up against your living room wall. The base are made from solid brush aluminum and look quite pretty. However if your other half don't want such eyesore, the stand make perfect storage for racing wheel and can be easily hide away in a closet.
The con about the stand is mainly the price. It is very pricey, especially if you have Microsoft wheel and have to fork out extra for adaptor. Another complain is the lack of foot pedals mounting unit. The stand was design for Fantec own racing wheel set which came with heavy metal plate foot pedals, when used with light foot pedals setup such as Microsoft 360 Wheel or even Logitech wheel, the foot unit tend to slide up. Fanatec provide a solution to this with another adaptor but I felt that this really should have been include with the stand. If you don't want to spend the extra $15.00 for this however, you can may be attach some anti-slip under the foot pedals unit or fashion one of your own adaptor if you are handy with tools.
So far I am really happy with the stand and I consider it money well spend as I get a lot more enjoyment out of my Microsoft Racing Wheel. Fanatec is also making a force feedback wheel for Xbox 360 that come with 6-speed shifter and foot pedal set with clutch. The price is really high (due to limited run and Porsche logo) but the wheel is suppose to also work with PC and PS3 (cheer Sony for using standard wheel control protocal). I have the Porsche wheel order but they are not expecting to ship the next lot until June or July. I figure while expensive, it will work for all three of mine gaming system (360, PC and PS3) and I won't need to swap the wheel out (plus I figure I would have to spend about $250.00 anyway for Logitech G25 set up).
Here is a link to fanatec site if you want to look at the pictures (click on Product tab and go to ReenSport Wheel Stand)
