Wondering what you guys do. I use mine to track breaking zones and to mentally prep per corner and what gear. I wonder if I can gain anything by covering my speedo on track? You know, so my perception of speed is honed in and I drive by "feel" rather than "numbers"
Never used the speedometer or the tachometer when racing. I drive by feel and sound and my perception of speed and distance to determine where to brake. What you are doing is actually dangerous. If you drive in to a corner after getting a bad exit from the previous corner you are going to hit your preconceived braking speed to deep in the next corner. At best you just mess up that corner at worst you can not keep it on the track and you crash. Also if your head is inside the cockpit trying to see gauges you have no clue what is going on out side of it. A bad thing. The last place you want to be is in the cockpit when you are setting up for a corner. This is important when you are alone on track and ten times more so when racing wheel to wheel.
I only looked at gauge's on straits and that was not to actually read them but instead see the position of the needle. If everything is where it is suppose to be I was good. If a needle was not where it should be you then actually read it. This is for things like oil temp and pressure, coolant temp an the like.
I mean, I don't STARE at the speedo. And yes, I just use the ear for shift points. But I'm only using the speedo as a general idea of what my entry and exit speeds were to see how far I can creep up on more. Obviously, I'm still driving by feel for the most part.
The answer is still no. It is a bad habit to get in to. At racing speed a quick glance is alot of distance. Even the time is takes for you eyes to focus form outside to inside and back can be the difference.
It is irrelevant with respect to the corner you are entering. A better thing to use the speedometer or tachometer for is to gage exit speed at a fixed point coming out of a corner. That will tell you how you did in that corner.
The problem with using it for corner entry is that it is not telling you any kind of distance to anything.
Speed with out a corresponding distance is not use full information.
Make sense?
Yes. Thanks man. And I appreciate the safety lecture. Better to race another day and be slow.
I did it when I started and a great instructor I had sat me down and explained it to me and demonstrated it as well. Initially it will not be intuitive but in short order it will be second nature and you will be more focused and you will be both faster and safer. It was one of those light bulb moments when I was starting out.
I found I forced me to a new level of situational awareness. And that is in my opinion a key to being a fast driver.
If Spool sees this thread I would love for him to chime in on this as he is a driving god. Just don't tell him that we don't want him to get to full of him self. 
Disagree. A good staged shift light does wonders for testing late braking strategies once you're consistent. Starting out, you should just focus on driving the line.
There's also a big difference between racing and track days/TT. If you're surprised by anything on a track day you've usually done something silly (or an animal ran out in front of you).
Just my .02
I never look at the speedometer during track days. other than an occasional glance at my oil pressure and temp gauges, i keep my eyes up, and use the sound of the exhaust to tell me when to shift. Same goes for when i race wheel to wheel.
I never look at the speedometer on track. I just never figured it was all that relevant. If I want to compare speeds between laps then I just use RPMs in a particular gear, that's information that is useful anyway. An example: at the end of the back straight I'm usually at, say, 6200 RPM in fourth when it's time to brake, I know if I'm at 5800 I screwed something up, and if I'm at 6500 I must have done something right.
Of course, even the tach doesn't get too much attention. At a recent chumpcar race our rev limiter inexplicably dropped over a thousand RPMs, ending the party at like 5700 instead of going to 7000. I had a hard time learning to shift a Honda at 5600. I was pretty much on the limiter. Every. Single. Shift.
People usually look at me and my speedo when I'm at the track.
I very rarely look at the speedo during a LeMons race. Some tracks have fairly long front straights and if I'm not in traffic, I may give it a quick glance, but beyond that I don't really look at it. As has been said, a lot of the driving is done by "feel". Especially after I've driven the car a few times, I have a really good feel for it. I listen to the engine and have a pretty good instinct as to when to shift, and how fast I'm going by how the engine sounds. We have very well placed shift lights in the cars, but I'm at the point where I typically can shift right before it comes on without looking at the tach.
Only on the podium.
Having a shift light is important. The op I don't think was asking about that.
I thought the op was asking about using the tachometer or the speedometer to determine brake points.
Nope.
Who cares how fast you are going, as long as it is faster than the other guy!
If you can't keep your eyes off that thing, it's a distraction. Cover it up!
If I'm going fast enough to care about how fast I'm going, I'm going too fast to take my eyes off the track.
Another vote for the shiftlight though.
I do, as a reference when trying out slightly different lines or trail braking or something, to see if my exit speed is better or worse, etc, just to measure against myself. I'm in the car on track for 2-4 hours at a time so there is plenty of time to work on stuff. I also use it on pucker inducing corners at times to remind myself that I can make it at XX speed, so I should stop braking.
It is also nice to have as an odometer to track maintenance.
I usually have some awareness of what the tach and speedo are showing, although I'm not by any means staring at them. I grew up around boats, so it's always been habit to have 1.5 eyes looking forward and the other half an eye looking at the gauges (when something goes abnormal, you've got very little time to do something before it goes bad).
I use tach/speedo to gauge my exit speed. Everything else is by feel except for critical gauges like oil pressure/temp. Thos get checked on the straights
Only as a reference at track out to see exit speed.
I don't have one.
I will occasionally look at it, but that's just because it's between the fuel gauge and the tach so my eyes scan across it. My speedo actually failed (bad connection at the diff) sometime during a two day HPDE and I didn't notice until I started driving home. It (and the tach) are very intermittent on the lemons car, so I'm doing everything by feel there. With everything else going on while out on track, the speedo just seems like a bit of an unneeded distraction.
Caveat: I'm not that fast of a driver, so YMMV.
You're using yours wrong. A speedo on track is only useful for performance review and entertainment, you shouldn't be looking at it much, and you definitely shouldn't be using it to judge where to brake! So in your case you probably should cover it up to break yourself of these habits. Back when my car had stock exhaust and was very quiet I'd have to glance at my tach often to know where to shift when driving near other cars. Haven't done a track day with the too-loud new exhaust yet, but I don't think I'll need it so much now.
My track shorts are Nike but Speedo does make an excellent product it's just that in the US they are not quite as fashionably acceptable as in the EU.
What you want is called a predictive lap timer. The AIM Solo is a good example.
I used my speedometer as a reference. Just to see if I improved .
Terry Earwood refers to a working speedometer in a track car as his "Redneck Motec." If it's good enough for Terry Earwood, it's good enough for me. Any device that can possibly give me another piece of data is a useful device.
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