Turning off the HUD is brilliant.

[Miz]

So I've been tearing my way through a Professional championship in my 80s Ford and pretty consistently stayed between fifth and second in every stage. It's a result I've been remarkably happy with, even though I've been abusing the restart feature rather heavily every time my car goes "I MUST GO! MY PEOPLE NEED ME!".

For some reason I decided to try to play with a minimal HUD, removing the pace notes, the progress bar, timers and... well, everything really. Bonnet cam only on the screen, no idea how far into a stage I am nor can I confirm what the fellow next to me said by glancing at the notes.

... my performance soared. From never being close to second/first, I consistently started knife-fighting with the first and second place, staying within a few seconds or even tenths of a second to them as I occasionally grabbed first but almost certainly getting second in most stages.
Anyone else have this happen to them? I can only guess it might improve your focus by reducing distractions but to me it seems almost counter-intuitive as I have less information readily available to me, but perform better.

It certainly makes the game look... well, like it isn't a game. The experience becomes so much more intense as there is just the bonnet of your car and the track, tearing at your steering wheel.

[J van E]

I disabled the HUD from day one: far more realistic in all aspects and better for your focus. Today I gave the 2nd in car view a try and I had to enable the counter which shows the gears, but other than that the HUD stays off.

[Blink]

I might try turning off the co-pilot soon myself. I find it distracting and the fact the pace notes can be wrong doesn't endear him to me anyway

[Beakus McMunch]

Turning off the HUD is the first thing I do in most racing games.

[Crash McWreakit VR]

been turning of entire hud since the first CMR games, find the info off putting, also I always use bumper cam, so its just me and the road,

[Montago]

One of the biggest problems with the HUD is the IN-YOUR-FACE warnings, timers and turn-signs ...

But after that, the placement and progress will make you drive faster than you are capable of - mainly because you want to see green rather than red...

Driving at YOUR speed is safer and therefore faster - because every little accident counts a lot !

[Eduardo]

Disabling HUD surely helped me mainly because I wasn't like "oh, I'm 2 seconds slower, I must go 150 km/h through that next hairpin to improve my time!" and crash with +15 sec. reset penalty... now I'm driving calmly, focusing only on the road and what my co driver is saying, and as a result I'm achieving much better times than before. And ofc it's much more immersing.

[Paul196UK]

I turned my HUD off a couple of days ago and also find it a better driving experience

[GiSSe]

Had mine of since after a few days playing, and my times got much better after that, so it's clearly a distraction you don't need.

[Mukatahren]

Pretty much the entire HUD is a distraction. In this type of racing you make thousands of individual decisions just keeping the car on the track and maintaining a good pace - the less distractions you have the better you can concentrate on what really counts.

[SIDWULF]

Switch to helmet cam and remove steering wheel in game (if you use a wheel) then I can respect you.

[mart1n1]

i don't even know what it is like to drive with the HUD.

but again, we're missing a lot of information that should be there in some way.

for example, when you need to fix a puncture, you can't see how much time you have left on the stage... this is an advantage for people using the HUD.

[MagicMop]

Originally posted by Rally-RacingIvysaur:

Suggest everyone to use a real display, or a tablet for displaying dashboard. Can recommended EKsimracing. Stay away from Dashmeterpro is you drive more simracing, because EKsimracing supports all sims.

I use an old discarded mobile phone with Dashmeterpro and have the whole HUD off. Works fantastic (except when I've forgotten to charge the phone prior to racing!)

Hadn't heard of EKsimracing before - I'll check it out.

[[F2C]MaDMaXX]

Which item on EKsimracing would i need? and can i put it out onto a second monitor rather than a phone/tablet?

[J van E]

Interesting apps! Is there something like that for the iPad?

[PietPeuk]

I tried, but I can't do without the co-driver.
(and I don't think he makes mistakes. If you think he makes mistakes, you're not synchronized with his notes)