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I'm hoping y'all might be able to help me out here. With my seated position while driving, my knee rubs against the speaker grill. In cooler weather, i.e. when I'm wearing pants, this isn't a problem. However, during warmer weather, when wearing shorts, this irritates my left knee quite a bit. At one recent track weekend, the rubbing was so bad my knee was bleeding during the second day. From the image below, you can see that I've put some moleskin padding where my knee rubs & it seems to have resolved the issue.
My question is, does anyone have a better solution? The moleskin works, but looks out of place. The car has 18-way seats and I've moved them forwards and back, up and down, etc., but the position that is most comfortable to the rest of me, results in my knee rubbing. I'm open to suggestions and appreciate your feedback.
Nike4000 wrote: Mon Sep 25, 2023 11:04 am
I'm hoping y'all might be able to help me out here. With my seated position while driving, my knee rubs against the speaker grill. In cooler weather, i.e. when I'm wearing pants, this isn't a problem. However, during warmer weather, when wearing shorts, this irritates my left knee quite a bit. At one recent track weekend, the rubbing was so bad my knee was bleeding during the second day. From the image below, you can see that I've put some moleskin padding where my knee rubs & it seems to have resolved the issue.
My question is, does anyone have a better solution? The moleskin works, but looks out of place. The car has 18-way seats and I've moved them forwards and back, up and down, etc., but the position that is most comfortable to the rest of me, results in my knee rubbing. I'm open to suggestions and appreciate your feedback.
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There are 5" or so between my knee and the speaker/door area when I'm in track seated position. (Also, mine is PDK, although that shouldn't make much of a difference for the problem you're encountering.)
My guess is that you're using your knee more than you know to brace yourself in turns. Proper race seating position requires your knees and elbows to have generous bend in them which makes hitting the speaker more likely, but your knee still shouldn't be going that far to the left into the door.
Do you use your left footrest? Using that will certainly help stabilize or anchor your left leg. Beyond that, the only thing I know of would be switching to LWB seats (lightweight buckets) and correctly installed 6-pt harnesses so that your body is planted, but that is an expensive undertaking.
Long pants will help as you've stated. Many track day organizers stipulate long pants for safety reasons anyway, so that might be the best short term answer, especially considering the cost of seat and harness upgrades.
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Tim Current: '26 911 Carrera S - PTS Verde British Racing Green
'24 Cayenne S - Algarve Blue Metallic
'21 718 Cayman GTS - Black
'22 911 Turbo S - Carmine Red
'21 718 Cayman GT4 - White
'11 GMC 1500 Quad Cab 4x4 - Black Musik-Stadt Region
I also have the 18 way seats in my GTS and in a drive to the post office a few minutes ago I could not reproduce the knee on the door panel/speaker grill situation you described. The lower seat bolster kept my leg/knee from contacting the door panel. If I flat foot my left leg and rest it up near the seat I can get my knee to touch the door panel but it is much higher than the speaker grill. I am assuming this only happens on track while experiencing high cornering forces.
Maybe try moving the seat back then the upright forward to keep the same arm reach but move your hips back. Can you narrow the lower bolster a bit to move your leg/knee in a bit? Sorry I can't be helpful in this situation.
Thanks for the suggestions. Thought these photos might help. Also, if I move my seat back much further, my arms don't reach the steering wheel, even with it fully extended. I've got really long legs, but short arms.
Knee against the speaker with my foot on the footrest. This would be the relaxed position. @blueline might be on to something with the suggestion that I might be bracing myself with my knee in turns. Although as the relaxed position, it's rubbing when I'm just out and about too - just not as severely.
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Knee away from the speaker while on the clutch. Of course I'm not going to ride the clutch while driving, especially when on the track.
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Maybe go the opposite direction from intuition and move the seat much closer. It will have the effect of forcing a greater bend in your knee which will put it higher than the speaker area.
That might not feel too comfortable at first but if your arms are stretched out fully now, then you're not at all positioned correctly anyway - they need a significant amount of bend at the elbows. By moving forward you could potentially solve both issues.
You would probably need to tilt the steering wheel up to give room for your now much higher leg position.The downside might be a bit of stiffness in your knees depending on how long you're on track.
Tim Current: '26 911 Carrera S - PTS Verde British Racing Green
'24 Cayenne S - Algarve Blue Metallic
'21 718 Cayman GTS - Black
'22 911 Turbo S - Carmine Red
'21 718 Cayman GT4 - White
'11 GMC 1500 Quad Cab 4x4 - Black Musik-Stadt Region
I am going to assume you are fairly tall , but also are you in the habit of actually using your dead pedal, as it seems many drivers do not. If you are the perfect size for a F1 driver , say 5-5 to 5-8 then you definitely need to be closer and when on track you might get a knee pad. Hitting the side or the door is pretty common in many cars ( regardless of height ) with the G forces many can achieve today. I finally got smart and got a pad for my left leg because when on track I would occasionally hit 1.7-1.8 gs and it was banging up the ole leg. Just some thoughts but if you get some gumballs from Indiana you just might want a pad to go outside your new pad, ha!
Right now, my steering wheel is positioned so I can cross my wrists above the 12 o'clock position, as required for HPDE events. When driving my elbows are bent at a comfortable angle. I wasn't very clear on that, so I apologize. No straight arms for me when driving!
@blueline - I'll try moving forward. Even a little forward movement of the seat might position my knee just high enough above the speaker grille to avoid the rubbing. Simple enough, but not something I had thought of!
@WillyDaP - What kind of knee pad did you get? That's definitely a solid option as well.
@Tom - The car's original owner installed a bar for a full 5-point racing harness and had replaced the seats with buckets. He swapped out the bucket seats & removed the harnesses when he decided to sell the car. My wife wouldn't ride with me anymore if I swap out the comfy seats & make her use a 5-point racing harness. Not sure if that's a positive or negative, need to think about that.
When the Cayman becomes a full time track car, high quality bucket seats & racing harnesses will definitely be one of my first upgrades!
I got some knee pads at Scheels Sporting Goods, but that was quite awhile back. I have seen some other ones on guys who drive Formula cats as your knees get destroyed in one of those.
I also had the same issue at my last autocross event. I am not tall but I am a larger man. My knee was raw and my skin was left in the speaker grill. This past weekend I was at Barber so I just used a knee pad and it worked just fine.
