This page controls MAIRA’s overlay windows. These are always-on-top floating windows that MAIRA can show on top of iRacing.
The current build includes four overlays:
- Gap monitor – the closest car ahead and behind, with race info and time gaps
- Delta monitor – your current lap time and how you are doing against your last lap and the leader
- Grip-O-Meter – a skid/slip and seat-of-pants gauge driven by the Steering Effects
- Captions – live captions of iRacing voice chat (see Captions)
Each overlay has its own section below with an enable switch and a title switch. The settings at the top of the page apply to all overlays at once.
All overlays
These settings apply to every overlay window at the same time.
Enable edit mode
Turning edit mode on forces every enabled overlay to be visible (even when you are not on track) and lets you rearrange them.
While edit mode is on, each overlay shows a small set of controls in its corner:
- Move – drag the overlay to a new screen position
- Scale – drag to resize the overlay
- Settings (gear) – opens a small window to adjust the overlay’s appearance, or reset it. For the box overlays (Gap monitor, Delta monitor, and Captions) you can set the background color – using a #RRGGBB hex code or the separate Red, Green, and Blue knobs – along with the opacity. The Grip-O-Meter has no background color, so its window offers the opacity control only.
When edit mode is off, the overlays become click-through so they don’t block your mouse during racing.
Default: OFF
Show when off track
When ON, the overlays stay visible even when your car is not on track (for example, in the garage). When OFF, the overlays only appear while you are on track.
Default: OFF
Show in replay mode
When ON, the overlays are also shown while you are watching a replay.
Default: OFF
Enable per-car overlay position and scaling
When ON, MAIRA remembers a separate position and scale for each car you drive. As soon as you switch to a different car, the overlays jump to the position and size you last set for that car – so a layout that keeps the overlays clear of one car’s on-screen displays doesn’t end up covering something important in another.
The first time MAIRA sees a car, it starts that car off from your non-car layout, so every new car gets a sensible starting point that you can then fine-tune. When this setting is OFF, all cars share the single non-car layout instead (the original behavior), and moving or scaling an overlay changes that shared layout.
Only overlay position and scale are stored per car – background color and opacity are shared across all cars.
Default: ON
Reset all overlay windows
Moves every overlay back to the upper-left corner of your primary display and resets their scale, background color, and opacity to the defaults. Use this if an overlay ends up off-screen or you want a clean start. With per-car position and scaling enabled, this resets the layout for the car you are currently in.
Gap monitor
The Gap monitor shows the closest car ahead and the closest car behind you, along with useful race information such as car number, race position, iRating, driver name, and the time gap.
The gap values are based on MAIRA’s timing-marker system rather than a simple distance check, which helps the overlay show a more meaningful time delta as cars move around the lap.
Enabled
Turns the Gap monitor overlay on/off. When ON, MAIRA automatically shows the overlay while connected to iRacing and on track.
Default: OFF
Show overlay window title
Shows or hides the title text at the top of the overlay window.
Default: ON
The top row shows the closest car ahead of you, and the bottom row shows the closest car behind you. Each row shows the car number, race position, iRating, time gap, and driver name.
The overlay ignores your own car, spectators, the pace car, and cars on pit road.
The position text is color-coded to help indicate whether the other car is effectively on the same lap, ahead by a lap, or behind by a lap. The gap text changes color depending on whether the gap is opening, closing, or staying about the same over recent timing markers.
Delta monitor
The Delta monitor shows your current lap time and how you are doing compared with your own last lap and the session leader.
- Lap – your current lap time
- vs. Last – how far ahead or behind you are compared with your previous lap
- vs. P1 – how far ahead or behind you are compared with the leader’s best lap
A negative delta means you are faster; a positive delta means you are slower.
Enabled
Turns the Delta monitor overlay on/off. When ON, MAIRA automatically shows the overlay while connected to iRacing and on track.
Default: OFF
Show overlay window title
Shows or hides the title text at the top of the overlay window.
Default: ON
Grip-O-Meter
The Grip-O-Meter is a small gauge overlay driven by the Steering Effects. It shows:
- Skid/Slip indicator (based on under/over deviation)
- Seat-Of-Pants ball (based on the seat-of-pants effect)
The skid/slip indicator is very similar to how this gauge works for aircraft.
Enabled
Turns the Grip-O-Meter overlay on/off. When ON, the overlay is shown while your car is on the track.
Default: OFF
Show overlay window title
Shows or hides the title text at the top of the overlay window.
Default: ON
Captions
The Captions overlay shows live captions of iRacing voice chat. The transcription itself is set up on the Captions page (recording device and ElevenLabs account); this section controls the overlay window.
Enabled
Turns captions on/off. This is the same switch as on the Captions page – when ON, MAIRA captures audio, sends it to ElevenLabs for transcription, and shows the caption overlay.
Default: OFF
Show overlay window title
Shows or hides the title text at the top of the overlay window.
Default: ON