Hi there!
Today I tried my steering wheel with vdrift. I have a Saitek R440 steering wheel. (Using Ubuntu Karmic, but I had the same issue back on those days using Debian Etch.)
My wheel is recognized to have 3 axes, the first one to steer left and right, the second to brake and the third for throttle. Both break and throttle got values from 0 to 255.
It does seem to make problems that brake and throttle are not on the same axis. If I start the game, everything is fine: The grafical indicator shows the black circle right in the middle of the brake/throttle axis. Accelerating works as expected. But if I use the brake just one time, everything is messed up: Releasing the brake is interpreted as a full brake and pressing down the brake pedal makes vdrift releasing the brake - I can only drive if I put my left foot on the brake pedal.
I guess, this is not a feature...
Greetings
Mitsch