$450 Racing Seat v. $900 Racing Seat
Car parts have never been and will never be cheap. Which one of these racing seats really provides the best bang for your buck?
Let’s say you go to the track for the first time or first time in a new car and you have a blast Maybe you break everything from the tire up, maybe it’s a flawless day. Either way, the event will have an impact on you. You’ll without a doubt learn some thing you never knew about your vehicle, its strengths and weaknesses. If your car is mainly a daily driver or only sees light track duty every now and then, it’s likely you still have stock seats.
Here is the problem with stock seats. They might be fine for driving around town, but the minute you take a corner at high speed, all that comfort turns into fear. There is nothing more disheartening than flying through your interior while trying to concentrate on taking a corner, which if you mess up, could result in an off or worse. Stock seats simply aren’t designed for rigor of on-track driving, even cars that built from the factory with a “track-focus” like an M3 or 911. Thus, we enthusiasts have to make a choice. There are hundreds of seat options, some expensive, some cheaper. Which is the right one for you? Thanks to Donut Media on YouTube, we get to find out.
The guys over at Donut have a started a series where they bought matching Nissan 350zs with the intention of tracking them. The catch is that one of the cars get cheaper parts and the other gets expensive. With some comparison, we get to find out which is best for the value. Today’s topic is fixed-back racing seats. Let’s look into the pros and cons of each.
The seats going head to head are a Sparco Qrt-r and a Corbeau FX-1 Pro. For racing, weight is everything. Thus, the Sparco with a higher price tag is built with lighter and materials to save weight as well as better build quality. The Corbeau might not feature the same level of quality, but it is without a doubt sufficiently supportive for the driver.
Then, if this is the case, what would be the best seat for your car? Well, there is no clear answer here. The only way to really find out is to go test fit a seat that interests you in person. It doesn’t matter how cheap or expensive it is, if it doesn’t fit your body shape well, it is defeating the purpose, to begin with. So a cheaper seat might suit you better than a $3000 carbon halo, but you have to test fit to find out for sure. If you aren’t doing any wheel to wheel and just care about track time, a used FIA-certified seat could work as well.
Long story short, always explore your options and test fit! If you’re curious about who preferred what seat and why, check out the conclusion at the end of the video.
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