I was fortunate to get eyedoc to sell me his Pole Position II cockpit sitdown cabinet. I know he wanted to keep it, but lucky for me his wife wouldn't let him.
This cabinet was completely gutted except for the steering wheel, shifter, speakers and coin door. No wires, no monitor, no PCBs, nothing. So, the decision was what to do with it.
Pole Position PCBs are notorious for being the worst out there to keep working. They break easily and generally are not at all hardy. The only one I could even find didn't even have the standard edge connector and required a special harness. Restoring this baby to a Pole Position just wasn't realistic.
Sooooooo - IF YOU ARE THE TYPE OF PERSON WHO WOULD THROW THEMSELVES IN FRONT OF AN ONCOMING BULLET TO PREVENT AN ORIGINAL CABINET FROM BEING CONVERTED - you should probably stop reading right now.
My options for this boiled down to MAME or XBOX.
MAME: Let's face it, most racing games in MAME are teh suxxorz. Also making MAME less attractive is the need for both a 360 wheel and 270 wheel. I don't need another swappable panel cabinet. A cockpit cabinet is also hard to get inside if you have it stuffed back in the corner of your game room.
XBOX: Racing games in XBOX are freaking awesome. If you haven't played a few rounds of BURNOUT 3: TAKEDOWN you have seriously missed out. Outrun 2006 is also a great, great update to one of my all time favorite arcade classics. In fact, there are at least 100 great racing games for XBOX; take a look:
1. Burnout 3: Takedown
2. Project Gotham Racing 2
3. Forza Motorsport
4. OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast
5. Burnout Revenge
6. Rallisport Challenge 2
7. Burnout 2: Point of Impact
8. MotoGP 2
9. Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition Remix
10. Midnight Club II
11. Rallisport Challenge
12. MotoGP
13. Project Gotham Racing
14. Colin McRae Rally 3
15. Colin McRae Rally 04
16. NASCAR 2005: Chase for the Cup
17. NASCAR Thunder 2004
18. Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition
19. MotoGP 3: Ultimate Racing Technology
20. TOCA Race Driver 2: The Ultimate Racing Simulator
21. Need for Speed Most Wanted
22. TOCA Race Driver 3
23. Colin McRae Rally 2005
24. NASCAR Thunder 2003
25. Need for Speed Underground
26. Sega GT 2002
27. Need for Speed Underground 2
28. Pro Race Driver
29. The Simpsons: Hit & Run
30. NASCAR Thunder 2002
31. F1 2001
32. Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2
33. MX Unleashed
34. OutRun2
35. NASCAR Heat 2002
36. Midtown Madness 3
37. Splashdown
38. MX vs. ATV Unleashed
39. NASCAR 06: Total Team Control
40. Mashed
41. Burnout
42. MTX Mototrax
43. Apex
44. Quantum Redshift
45. MX Superfly
46. Test Drive: Eve of Destruction
47. Rally Fusion: Race of Champions
48. ATV Quad Power Racing 2
49. Juiced
50. Wreckless: The Yakuza Missions
51. Driver: Parallel Lines
52. IndyCar Series 2005
53. MX 2002 Featuring Ricky Carmichael
54. FlatOut
55. Sega GT Online
56. Freestyle MetalX
57. Spy Hunter
58. R: Racing Evolution
59. IndyCar Series
60. V-Rally 3
61. Crash Tag Team Racing
62. Crazy Taxi 3: High Roller
63. Freaky Flyers
64. Street Racing Syndicate
65. Powerdrome
66. RoadKill
67. Chase: Hollywood Stunt Driver
68. Richard Burns Rally
69. Crash Nitro Kart
70. Mad Dash Racing
71. Dakar 2
72. XGRA: Extreme-G Racing Association
73. Cel Damage
74. Carve
75. Test Drive
76. Big Mutha Truckers
77. Crash 'N' Burn
78. Speed Kings
79. Ford Racing 2
80. World Racing
81. Circus Maximus
82. Total Immersion Racing
83. Starsky & Hutch
84. Test Drive Off-Road Wide Open
85. Ford Mustang: The Legend Lives
86. Totaled!
87. Spy Hunter 2
88. 4x4 EVO 2
89. The Simpsons Road Rage
90. L.A. Rush
91. DRIV3R
92. Ford Racing 3
93. Hot Wheels Stunt Track Challenge
94. Furious Karting
95. Sonic Riders
96. Auto Modellista
97. The Italian Job
98. Motor Trend: Lotus Challenge
99. Jacked
100. Group S Challenge
Making a dedicated XBOX racing cabinet just seems to be a great option. So that's the direction I went. I am almost finished, but I wanted to bring you up to date on what all I have done. This is absolutely going to be my favorite cabinet, and hopefully it will be 100% tomorrow night.
Here she is when I brought her home a few weeks ago: