Community Question | Do You Wear Gloves To Sim Race?

Paul Jeffrey

Premium
I'll readily admit - I'm a big fan of glove usage when on my racing rig - what's your opinion on the subject?

Initially I started out with the idea of wearing gloves to protect my various wheel rims from unnecessary wear and tear and to avoid any kind of water damage should my palms get too sweaty when driving. Throw into the mix a desire to avoid blisters of slipping on the wheel itself, the initial idea at the time felt pretty obvious.

Having been a wearer of gloves to sim race right from my first laps with the old Logitech G25, wearing them very quickly became second nature to me, and I don't even notice I've got them on anymore... until....

... I quite recently had to test something out, and that required me to turn a couple of laps on the rig. To be quite frank, I couldn't be bothered to reach over and get the gloves on. Man, it felt so strange without them, like an entirely different experience.

I was greatly surprised how much difference handling the wheel felt without my gloves - it somehow felt less realistic. I know that sounds silly, even to me, but I honestly did not like the experience without my gloves on one little bit. Weird how your mind gets accustomed to experiencing things in certain ways.

Anyway I digress.. the point of this article / question is to ask the community if they too use gloves to sim race, or if you don't, is that because you choose not too, or don't feel the need / like the experience.

Let us know how you prefer to go about your racing in terms of hand accessories ! Gloves FTW, or keeping it all naked skin :)

Let the discussion commence!

Gloves Question.jpg
 
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I used to always race with bare hands, but with cars you really have to jockey, it's surprisingly easy to get calluses or blisters on your hands in long races, especially with direct drive.

To that extent, I have a pair of Sparco Tide RG-9s which I use sometimes, but usually not for races less than 30 minutes.
 
I do wear gloves, but not all the time. If it's going to be a short session, probably not. But if I know it's going to be a couple hours or more, I have a pair of leather driving gloves (I know, kind of old school). I think using real fire resistant racing gloves is a bit overkill, but hey if it gives you a deeper sense of immersion that's fine. After a while sometimes my hands chafe a bit on some of the seams on my wheel, so the gloves help with that. And, of course sweat.
 
I never use gloves, it seems excessive to me
I use a MOMO Corse leather steering wheel and my hands
they do not sweat (except when the temperature reaches 30 degrees).
 

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