Our Verdict
Pros
- A very sturdy chassis
- Almost zero flex, even with direct drive wheels
- Looks the part
- Expandable with add-on seat
- Pedal plate in particular was very secure
Cons
- Slightly tricky to get the perfect driving position
- Hard to mount Logitech Shifter
- Sharp corners on shifter plate
GT Omega APEX Wheel Stand Review and Unboxing
GT Omega is renowned for manufacturing some of the best wheel stands and sim rigs available. This APEX Wheel Stand is no exception. It’s a supremely sturdy stand that is relatively easy to store once you’re done racing.
In this review, I discuss my experience with the wheel stand, including the pros and cons, and ultimately give you my verdict on whether you should buy it right away, wait for a sale, or not bother at all.
Unboxing and setup
When the APEX wheel stand first arrived at my door, I soon realized how well-built this wheel stand was. The box, although not too large in size, was a heavy beast.
Unboxing and constructing the wheel stand is a really simple affair. The wheel stand as a whole comes almost completely assembled. All you need to do is install the feet, wheel plate, and shifter mount.
And all of those parts are easily fitted with a few nuts and screws. This was one of the simplest construction jobs I’d undertaken in a while, so fair play to GT Omega on this design.
All of the mounting plates on the GT Omega APEX come pre-drilled, with plenty of options to mount your racing wheel to. It is fully compatible with all brands of racing wheels, and we had both our Logitech G923, and our Fanatec DD1 mounted to this wheel stand.
Both were relatively easy to mount, although I’d highly recommend hard mounting your equipment with screws, but I’ll come to that later.
After I finished constructing the GT Omega APEX wheel stand, I quickly encountered my first issue. I found it extremely hard to find a comfortable racing position.
Finding the correct mounting position
The way that the APEX wheel stand is designed, means you have to sit in a fairly upright driving position, or have extremely short legs! I struggled to get the wheel over my lap enough, and the pedals far enough away to feel truly comfortable.
This problem is with almost all wheel stands I’ve used and isn’t isolated solely to the GT Omega wheel stand. But the way that the chassis is designed to adjust, means that to get the wheel closer to my chest, I had to raise it up simultaneously.
This meant that I either had to have the wheel at the right height, but too far away. Or at the right distance but too high.
In the end, all of my driving with this wheel stand was done with the wheel sitting just a little higher than I was comfortable with. Meaning I had to raise the height of my gaming chair to suit it.
I wasn’t using the rear extension which is an additional option, or the GT Omega chair attachment. So it’d be interesting to see if both of these options increased comfort.
Another slight gripe I had was with the wheel mount, which features angle adjustments. This angle adjustment caused a few hairy moments while racing hard.
On several occasions, mainly when drifting fairly aggressively, the angle adjustment on the wheel plate came loose, causing the whole wheel to move. This happened to me twice, causing me to have to over-tighten the bolt to “hopefully” eliminate any future occurrences of this.
How well-built is the GT Omega APEX Wheel Stand?
The steel frame that this wheel stand is constructed with is extremely strong and heavy. This premium material, along with the great product design makes for one sturdy wheel stand.
As I’ll discuss in the performance section below, this APEX wheel stand held up much better than its direct competition.
In terms of build quality itself. All parts, from the chassis to the nuts and bolts that hold it together are of great quality. When constructing this wheel stand, all bolts simply slide into place, and there is never a feeling of a lack of quality anywhere.
One area of note is just the pure quality of the items that this wheel stand comes with. In the box are a whole host of extra nuts and bolts, to help mount any racing wheel to the stand.
There is also a shifter mount included, which isn’t always the case with some sim rigs. There is good attention to detail with elements such as the cable tidies. Instead of using traditional cable ties, GT Omega provides a good range of Velcro cable tidies, allowing you to run all cables down one leg of the wheel stand.
How well does the APEX Wheel Stand perform?
Compared to alternative wheel stands, the GT Omega APEX remained stable throughout my play-testing.
In terms of out-and-out stability, the APEX wheel stand performed extremely well. Especially compared to an all-in-one rig such as the Playseat Evolution, which I had set up right next to this wheel stand.
Where the Playseat Evolution suffers from extreme flexing under pressure, the APEX remains deadly. This was especially noticeable when comparing pedal plates.
The Playseat Evolution’s pedal plate flexes heavily when you stamp on the brake pedal, whereas the GT Omega APEX’s pedal plate doesn’t move an inch. This is also impressive considering that one of GT Omega’s main rivals, Next Level Racing, also has products which suffer from pedal plate flexing.
Both the Next Level Racing F-GT and Next Level Racing Wheel Stand feature designs where the pedal plate overhangs the end of the chassis. This allows for flex to creep in when really hammering the brake pedal. In comparison, GT Omega utilizes a design where the pedal plate is heavily supported from underneath, stopping any movement.
This comes down to design, which is an area where GT Omega has excelled. All of GT Omega’s sim rigs and wheel stands have featured a very well-engineered design, eliminating a lot of flex and movement that is present across other products.
Seating position
The entirety of the chassis sits relatively squat, with the weight low to the ground, and a good amount of support for the higher regions. This means that chassis flex is almost completely none existent.
In my play testing, I threw a lot at this wheel stand, including a direct-drive wheel and a lot of drifting. Drifting is always a good test for a sim rig, as you routinely throw the wheel about, using its full 900-degree rotation.
Often, with other wheel stands, during drifting you’ll find that the stand tends to rock from side to side under fast motions. But the GT Omega APEX did not rock one bit. And this is a testament to its design.
Compatibility and direct drive support
As I mentioned right at the top of this review, the APEX wheel stand comes pre-drilled with mounting points for all main-brand racing wheels. This means compatibility is extremely good.
There are options to hard mount a wide variety of equipment on the wheel stand, pedal plate, and shifter mount. Although the shifter mount isn’t overly well designed.
When trying to mount my Logitech shifter to the plate, it simply wouldn’t grip. This is due to the shifter having a rim that runs around the whole plate. This meant that the in-built grips on the shifter just couldn’t grip at all.
Whenever I pulled a shift into second, fourth or sixth, the whole shifter would come away from the mounting plate. In the end, I hard-mounted the shifter to the plate, and the issue was completely gone.
Can the wheel stand support direct drive wheels?
When it comes to wheel stands being strong enough to support direct drive wheels, I’m always apprehensive.
I’ve routinely hurt my arms using a direct drive wheel, just by racing too long or cranking the force feedback up too high. And even on fully integrated sim rigs, direct drive wheels have shaken the stand apart. That’s just how strong they can be.
Although, in my experience using my Fanatec DD1 with this wheel stand, I was extremely surprised at how well it performed!
Due to the wheel stand being designed in a way where each of the four legs are well spaced apart, forces are evenly distributed across the chassis. Meaning there is very little flex or wobble.
The wheel plate, which the DD1 was mounted to, sits relatively low and tight against the main chassis, meaning it isn’t too much of a weak spot. As mentioned above, I did encounter two instances of where the adjustment bolt holding the wheel plate was shaken loose. But these were relatively isolated cases compared to how long I have been racing with this stand.
Is this wheel stand truly easy to store away?
When a long race session is over, packing this wheel stand away is easy. You must loosen the pedal plate, and the whole stand will start to fold.
The stand doesn’t fold completely flat, but it’ll get very close, meaning you can easily rest it against a wall, or in a cupboard, freeing up space in your room.
You can even fold this wheel stand away with your racing wheel and pedals still attached. This makes setting up for a race or storing away for the night very easy.
Of course, with your racing wheel still mounted to the wheel stand, the folded-away width does increase. As you will have your wheel and pedals sticking out a little.
But the fact that you can so easily store everything away, without having to disconnect your whole rig is extremely beneficial.
Is the GT Omega APEX Wheel Stand worth buying?
So, when it comes to looking at everything, this wheel stand offers. It is extremely hard to not recommend it to anybody looking to buy a compact wheel stand.
It supports every branded racing wheel. Performs extremely well with almost zero flex or movement, (which many other wheel stands suffer from). And can be stored away in less than 30 seconds.
It ticks all of the boxes that a wheel stand should. To wrap things up, it’s also priced cheaper than its main competitor, coming in under a cool $150/£150.
Technical Specifications
Review written by Felix König
