iRacing live timing for league broadcasts.
Where live timing data comes from in iRacing, what you can show on a broadcast, and the mistakes that make a timing tower wrong on screen.
By the GSRC crew · Updated October 2026
Live timing is what turns a race picture into a race. Positions and gaps tell viewers who’s winning and where the fights are. Getting it right means understanding where the data comes from.
Where the data comes from
iRacing publishes live session data to software running on the same PC through its telemetry interface. A spectator connected to the session sees data for every car on track: running order, laps completed, where each car is on the lap, lap times and whether a car is on pit road. Timing software reads this and turns it into a tower.
That means the timing is only as good as the spectator connection. If the broadcast PC drops out of the session, the timing freezes with it.
What you can show
Overall and class positions.
Gap to the leader, or interval to the car ahead.
Last and best lap times.
Cars in the pits.
Laps completed and laps remaining.
Gap or interval?
The gap to the leader tells the story of the race at the front. The interval to the car ahead tells you where the battles are. Many broadcasts show intervals during the race and switch to gaps for the final laps. Pick one per view and label it clearly.
Mistakes to avoid
Names that don’t match the entry list. Check spellings and abbreviations before the race.
Lapped cars shown as if they were close. Show laps down instead of a gap.
Pit stops scrambling the order. Expect the tower to settle a lap after the stops.
Classes mixed together on a multi-class grid. Show class positions and colours.
No test. Run the timing in practice or qualifying first.
Timing on screen and off
The broadcast tower shows what the audience needs at a glance. Fans who want every number, such as full lap charts and sector times, are better served by a separate live timing page they can open next to the stream.
Timing that’s run, not just shown.
A timing tower in your series branding, managed live by our director.