How to Pick the Right Racing Seats

As you modify your car and make it handle better, the speeds at which you take a corner will begin to increase. Depending on what kind of car you drive, the factory seat might not be able to support you properly during those hard turns, especially during fast transitions. This lack of support will result in you sliding around in the seat, forcing you to brace your legs and hang on to the steering wheel to sit still. Not only does this ruin the driving experience, but it’s also dangerous. With a proper racing seat, however, this issue is solved, as your hips and shoulder will be properly supported. Many enthusiasts have a lot of questions about racing seats, so we set out to answer all those questions and more with this article.

The Purpose of a Racing Seat

As we mentioned above, the main purpose of a racing seat is to hold you in place during high g-force corners. It’s also used as a safety measure and is a required part in all professional racing series. In order to keep your body from breaking or falling out of the vehicle during a crash, the seat needs to keep you firmly in place. If the seat breaks, it will no longer be able to hold you in place which could result in injury or death depending on how bad the crash is. Medical bills are definitely going to cost more than a quality racing seat and even the best drivers in the world make mistakes, this is why we always recommend purchasing a quality seat.

Different Features

Every racing seat out there is slightly different and each enthusiast has different needs. There are three main features that separate each racing seat: mounting system, recline-ability, and support.

There are two main ways of mounting a racing seat to your car. You can either use the traditional bottom mount system which is simple. Depending on your configuration, bottom mounting can easily allow usage of the stock sliders. A side mount system allows the seat to be mounted as low as possible and as secure as possible.

Factory “racing seats” like the Recaros found in Ford performance vehicles or many other performance cars still allow you to recline back. This is a feature that makes daily driving much more pleasurable, but in terms of racing, it’s just another point where the seat can fail. If your seat fails where it reclines during a hard crash your spine, neck, and head, will be completely unsupported. This is why all race cars use a fixed back seat which eliminates the reclining system for maximum weight savings and lower weight.

Now the last differentiating feature is the amount of support (bolsters) the seat provides. With huge bolsters comes a massive amount of support for your legs, hips, shoulders, and head, but all that bolstering also makes it very difficult to get in or out of the seat. This is especially true if your vehicle is something like a lifted truck, where getting in is already difficult. A seat with less bolstering will still be more supportive than the factory seat and will still be easy to get in and out of.

Summary

Be sure to check out our huge selection of racing seats, below will also be a list of our most popular seats. To summarize all this, just remember that a quality racing seat could save your life. Aside from the safety, it will also improve the driving experience dramatically and open a new world of performance driving. Check out some of our most popular aftermarket seat brands below!

• Recaro


• Bride


• Braum


• Corbeau


• Status Racing