The Problem Nobody Was Solving
There is a moment that repeats itself in the sim racing world more often than most people realize. Someone decides they want a rig. They ask for the dimensions. And then they go quiet.
"I've built rigs between a wall and a couch. The couch had to be moved and the whole room became uncomfortable. I've built rigs in garages. I've even had clients not buy rigs because it just would not fit anywhere."
For Gustas, this was not an occasional problem. It was the pattern. Over years of building sim rigs and coaching drivers, he watched the same compromises repeat themselves. Rooms rearranged around a piece of hardware that had no business being that wide. Clients who ordered first and only started realizing the problem once the rig arrived. The average aluminum profile sim rig had grown wider year on year, and nobody in the industry seemed to be asking why.
"With our phones, laptops, and TVs getting slimmer, why should sim rigs get wider?"
The width was one problem. The cost was another. A rig that arrived without a monitor mount, without a heel rest, without a wheelbase mount worth using was not a finished product. It was the beginning of a longer and more expensive process that most buyers did not see coming. Every addition made sense individually. Together they turned a straightforward purchase into something frustrating.
What a Racing Driver Actually Needs
For Gustas, the heel rest was the detail that made the least sense. As a professional racing driver who has competed at the highest levels of both real-world motorsport and sim racing, the absence of something so fundamental was not a minor inconvenience. It was a question nobody in the industry had bothered to answer.
"I've never sat in a racing car without a heel rest. Once the flag drops, the bullshit stops, and every tenth matters."
The rest of the industry had different priorities. Or perhaps no one had stopped to ask what a driver actually needed.
"Everyone is building the same thing. Everyone is making the same mistakes."
Gustas had been thinking about this for years. What he did not have was the means to do anything about it alone. He is the first to say so.
"I'm not an engineer. Good ideas without the right people and the right funding stay in CAD files."
The Right People
The right people turned out to be two people specifically.
Peter is the kind of engineer who has spent a decade thinking about nothing but simulator hardware. Structural integrity, connection systems, load distribution under dynamic force. When Gustas came to him with a set of guidelines, what he wanted to see and what he did not want to see, Peter went to work. What came back was not what Gustas had expected.
"I went from being surprised at the rig to being surprised that nobody had done this before."
Dmitrij brought something different. A serial entrepreneur since 2009 with businesses spanning logistics and online retail, he had put more products to market than most people have ideas. He understood practically and commercially what it takes to turn a concept into something real. Without him, the rig might have stayed exactly where good ideas without funding tend to stay.
What Came Out of It
The first reaction from clients who saw the finished product was consistent in a way that said something real about what had been missing.
"The first reaction was always the same. Sexy and sleek."
That reaction came before any engineering explanation. Before the closed perimeter base, the anchor connectors, the 45-degree triangulated uprights, the integrated monitor mount positioned tight between the uprights so the width of the rig is dictated by the monitor and nothing else. The product looked right before anyone understood why it was right.
When they did understand, something shifted. The width was not a compromise. It was the point. The included heel rest was not a bonus. It was the baseline. The monitor mount was not an add-on. It was part of the frame.
PROMION is what happens when the person who spent years watching the industry get it wrong finally had the right team and the right moment to do something about it.
