Truck drivers need a way to unwind, too - it's just unfortunate that most of them have to spend their nights stuck in the same vehicle they spend their workdays in. But one driver has found what might just be the ultimate solution: just replace the passenger seat with a $6,000 sim racing rig. You can even get in a few laps while you're stuck in traffic.
That's exactly what Reddit user ZanaZamora has done. You can see it all in the clip below (via Highlight Reel), but the driver, at a standstill behind backed-up road traffic, simply hops over to the passenger seat to start a racing lap on a full-fat sim rig.
"Been waiting to get stuck in traffic ever since installing this rig just to make this video lol," ZanaZamora says in the post. "Road was shut down due to an accident, said we could u turn across the median, I said one minute I need to do something REAL QUICK."
Stand still traffic? Time to switch to the other seat~ from r/simracing
This is not a casual rig, either, as ZanaZamora explains in another post. "The racing equipment(Feedback base, wheel, pedals, chassis, and seat) was around $1600 which is pretty good considering it’s all high end stuff. IE 18nm base, real carbon fiber wheel with aluminum knobs, load cell brake," the driver explains in another post.
Add to that another $1,100 for some flight sim equipment, and an ultra-high-end gaming PC with a "14th gen i9 and a pretty RTX 5080" built for "around" $2,800 and you've got a proper simulation setup on the go. "With taxes and bits I’ve certainly forgotten all in all it’s around $6000," ZanaZamora says.
"Personally it’s absolutely without a doubt worth it," ZanaZamora continues. "Generally speaking, worth it. But in the semi truck it’s gotten even more value than I anticipated. Sim racing is incredibly rewarding, something you can really dig into and strive to improve in. Having a hobby on the road that you can easily melt a 34 hour reset with or even just spend a 30 minute break working on something small, is a great resource."
Well, hey, you might think that somebody spending their workdays driving then spending their off time doing virtual driving is a bit weird, but I'd say it's more a matter of perspective. As a person who writes about video games all day and then goes and plays them for fun, I won't tell anybody not to mix their job and their hobby.
Or, as ZanaZamora puts it: "You can work the job or you can make the job work for you."
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