hehe first few laps you will bugger the the gear changes up but thats why i dont do it unless i know the set well enough, but its great for learning to keep the car tight in corners and under breaking as you have to rely on the feeling of the car, and i dont even have FF illepall hehehe but you would be suprised at what you can feel..
Many race cars in real life don't even have speedometers. What ever line gives you the highest engine speed at the end of the following straight is what I had always been told was the fastest. Split time also will tell you a whole lot.
I use the digital speedo and sometimes check the rev meter in case for the time to shift. I check the speedo mostly for corner entry and top speeds. I have a habit in referring to track side objects to predict my laptime. For example, in the FOX at Aston National - from the end of the first white canope of the main grandstand to the finish line is about 4.7 seconds. It can be as much as 5.2 depending on the exit speed from the final chicane.
I'm also driving like biggie and also sometimes remembering some posts, pavement changes, shadows.
I think thx to being stuck on the speedo with My eyes I might loose some of My stability, since I dont drive the right lines all the time, but I dunno, I just cant do without it
Once tryed to drive without sectors, speedos on BL Gti in S1, think I did 1.35.5x, pb at the time was 1.32.2 so it's just the matter of how You feel like
if i can be bothered puttin me headphones on, i dont look much at the speedo/tacho, and if i dun put em on, me eyes are glued to the tacho on the straights..
I'm not good enough to be able to drive fast laps without fully concentrating on my raceline, and so I don't look at my speed (digital), I disabled split time display and shrunk the size of chat messages (had a bad habit of wanting to read all of them which usually got me in the sandbox)
Still several seconds from WRs, but I'd rather choose this than to have no competition at all.
I used to look at my speedo a lot when I knew Blackwood's every pixel backwards and the GTi's line around it in S1 but those days are over and now I look at the speedo a bit when starting to learn a track and after I know the brakepoints, the rest comes on feel.
I have disabled everything i can disable. wheel, speedo/rev, pedals, maps. I just listen to the engine and tyres and drive drive drive (with this i am NOT implying that you do not "drive" but i want to emphasize that i do not care much about anything else other than the driving.) and look at either the lap time or if the other guy is gaining on me.
I keep the standard HUD on most of the time and still look at the speedo too often, probably because I'm not consistent enough all around, ending up at braking zones at different speeds. Besides the speedo gives something to look at on long straights
Interesting thread. Personally, I have the speedo set to analogue and never even glance at it. I switch it to digital only when I need to know my pit-lane speed.
I don't think real drivers rely on G-forces to tell them how fast they are going, and considering how small the differences between a good corner and a bad corner can be, how fast the things are going past the window is no help either. When I drive on a track, I know how well I drove a section mainly by how wide the car wants to run wide on the exit. If I have road to spare then I was too slow, if I run out of road I was too fast. Then it's usually just a case of adjusting the braking point. It's the same in LFS.
The only time I will ever look at the speedo is on crucial corner exits that really can affect your overall laptime.
Like for example, FE Gold, and where you just turn right onto the train tracks bridge... there is a certain speed you know is good or bad when exiting there.
There are only a few places I'd usually look at my speed, but I don't look at it often. I know some people cannot seem to look away from it on every corner and every straight. They have too much on their mind I think. Usually a few glimpses of my speed and split times is the only numerical data I worry about --- oh and maybe my postion in the race too
You should get used to driving the track without being distracted. If you've ever driven a car fast, you will notice your focus is never at the minor things in your cockpit, it is always ON THE ROAD/TRACK. There is an even higher focus when on a motorcycle (at least for me).
Sometimes I look down at the speedo on the bike and I'm surprised at what it's reading.
I always talk in the "cockpit/wheels view" threads about where you should be looking, up ahead on the track. On the motorcycle, this is really easy and natural as my rear end is kicked off the seat a little, I'm leaning over a bit (myself on the edge of the seat), and pushing down on the bars focusing up ahead through the corner to the exit. For some reason, in sim racing, I have to think to do this. I have to remind myself not to look at the corner and not to look at the gauges to see where my speed is. But, I end up doing just that, checking my speed turning into the corners, in the corners, exiting the corners, down the straights.... I know I shouldn't be looking at them and focusing up ahead on the track and preach it all the time when threads like this or the "view" threads come up, but it is hard to do. When I focus up ahead on the track and not pay attention to speed, the apex that I am in, or laptimes, the PB's come left and right and all over the place.
Why don't you just create a custom view still ín cockpit, but where you can't see the speedo (if this is possible). I would expect that putting the view position more forward would remove it from your sight.
I'm always looking at the speedo too btw, doing the exact same thing. I tried to do it differently, but keep braking too much before corners if I don't watch the speedo. This is because I usually start braking quite early and modulate it to get to the speed I want to start taking the corner with and still have time to hit the apex (which I often miss to be honest )
I better start making some of these adjustments myself too and get racing without the speedo :P