The Track Impulse radar is a free iRacing radar overlay with three views: a circular disc, a portrait radar and simple side bars. It engages when a car closes within 7 metres, turns red and pulses when someone is within 1.5 metres or directly alongside, and clears the moment the gap opens. No Pro plan, no SimHub, no dashboard building. Part of the free Track Impulse overlay suite, and it works in ACC, Assetto Corsa and Le Mans Ultimate too.
The radar reads every car's position from live telemetry and places it by its real gap in metres. Colour tells you how close: blue when far, amber inside 7 metres, red and pulsing within 1.5 metres or with a car directly alongside. In iRacing the blips carry the car number, so you know exactly who it is.
Watch car 24 run the whole battle below. The loop pauses while it sits door to door, red warning arch on the rim, so you can read exactly what the radar shows at the moment that decides the corner. Each card lights up as the radar reaches that stage.
Car 24 appears behind you as a blue blip. Blue means the gap is still more than 7 metres. The number on the blip tells you exactly who you are racing.
Inside 7 metres the blip turns amber and the side indication engages. This is also when the optional voice callout says car left. The position is the real gap, straight from telemetry.
Alongside, the blip goes red and pulses, and a red warning arch fires on the rim at the car's exact bearing. The loop holds here so you can take it in.
The gap opens and the warning drops only once the car is past 10 metres. That buffer means the radar never flickers while you fight side by side.
Both thresholds are deliberate hysteresis: engage at 7 metres, clear at 10 metres, so the warning cannot flicker on the edge of a threshold. The radar range itself is adjustable from 10 to 25 metres, and the portrait view draws metre-labelled distance rings so you can read closing speed at a glance.
The radar also ships with optional voice callouts. Turn them on and a spotter voice calls car left, car right, three wide and clear the moment the situation changes, with its own volume control, selectable voice packs and a choice of playback device. Audio for the alert, radar for the picture, in every sim the radar supports.
One radar, three ways to read it. Pick the style in the overlay settings, then drag the panel wherever your eyes already go. All three use the same telemetry and the same colour logic, so switching styles never changes what the radar tells you, only how it draws it.
No. iRacing has no built-in proximity radar. The sim gives you an audio spotter that calls "car left" and "car right", and since the rain update a weather radar that shows precipitation, but nothing that draws nearby cars on screen. That is why radar overlays exist as separate apps.
The audio spotter tells you a car is there. A visual radar tells you where it is and how fast it is closing, which is the difference between holding your line and turning in on someone at corner entry. On a single screen with no mirrors, it is the one overlay that directly saves races. The two work best together: audio for the alert, radar for the picture. Track Impulse gives you both, since the radar ships with its own optional voice callouts for car left, car right, three wide and clear.
If you were looking for iRacing's rain and precipitation radar, that ships inside the sim itself as part of its weather system. This page covers the other kind: a proximity radar overlay that shows the cars around you.
Compared with RaceLab, iOverlay, irDashies, SimHub and iSimpleRadar, Track Impulse is the free radar with three views that also works outside iRacing. The two big commercial overlay apps, RaceLab and iOverlay, put their radar behind a paid Pro plan. The free alternatives are solid but narrower: iRacing only, one view, or a dashboard you assemble yourself.
Prices and features checked from each vendor's own site or repository in July 2026. Free tiers and paid plans change, so confirm at the source before you buy. Cells marked Not listed could not be confirmed from the vendor's site. irDashies and iSimpleRadar are free community projects and good options if all you want is an iRacing-only radar.
The radar ships inside the Track Impulse installer as part of the overlay suite. There is no separate download, no plugin folder and no dashboard to build. From download to a working radar is a few minutes.
Run the installer and tick the overlays component during setup. The overlays run on your existing activation, free during beta, whether or not you use the bass shaker side of the app.
Open the spotter overlay's settings and choose disc, radar or bars. Set the radar range anywhere from 10 to 25 metres. The default 15 metres suits most racing.
Every panel is draggable and resizable. Most drivers put the disc or portrait radar just below centre screen, close to where their eyes already sit at corner entry. Then go race: the radar engages on its own when traffic arrives. The overlays guide covers every setting.
The radar installs alongside the full Track Impulse overlay suite: a relative, standings, a fuel calculator, a full dashboard, a shift light, a Twitch bot that answers viewer commands from live telemetry, a performance overlay with post-session track heat maps, and a live haptics HUD. All 20 overlays are free during beta, in one installer, across iRacing, ACC, Assetto Corsa, Le Mans Ultimate and every other sim Track Impulse supports.
Run just the radar if that is all you want. Every overlay toggles on and off independently, so a minimal HUD stays minimal.
Install Track Impulse, tick the overlays during setup, and the radar is on screen for your next session. Three views, real metres, red when it matters. Free during beta. No credit card.