Quote from Bob Smith :

Not the perfect solution, I never use the mini-map, I don't like arcade features in LFS. I suspect I'm not alone with that opinion.

Using look left/right/behind is essential though, and should suffice.

My main peeve is when a car ahead (or a group of cars) get a little out of shape, you brake to not plough into them, and someone behind you takes the opportunity to pass me. With any luck they'll wipe out into the car I brake to avoid, but sadly they usually pull it off.

Where's the fun in taking a car going that much slower than you? The fun comes from winning the battles, not winning the war.

Well, I don't think it's exactly an arcade feature considering a decent driver knows the layout of the track within a few laps. And knowing where other drivers are on the track and whether they're ahead or behind you in the race is a big help considering you don't have someone talking in your ear telling you your situation. Especially in situations where you've got a very inconsistent lapped racer ahead of you and you're not going to get his split times, but you can tell you're eating large chunks out of the gap as you're driving. (Now when you come up to him after he's almost spun out in a corner you know it wasn't an infrequent error and you should avoid him like the plague.)

And in the case of playing around on the demo servers with a wrecker connected it can be a big help knowing which side of the track he's waiting on before he can see you. (Although this is an infrequent case for most of the people here.)