Crew Chief is the most widely used companion app in iRacing. It adds real-time voice coaching, a fuel calculator, damage reports, and opponent tracking to every session you run. Nearly every serious iRacer has it installed. If you have not set it up yet, this guide covers everything you need to get started.
What Crew Chief Does
At its core, Crew Chief functions as your spotter and race engineer combined into a single application. It listens to your live iRacing session data and delivers information in real time. You get alerts for cars alongside you, lap time comparisons, damage reports, fuel estimates, and gap timing to cars ahead and behind.
The difference between Crew Chief and iRacing’s built-in spotter is the depth of information. The built-in spotter tells you when a car is to your left or right. Crew Chief tells you that your fuel runs out on lap 18, your front left tyre is running hotter than the rear, the car behind closed three tenths on the last lap, and you are losing time in the final sector. That is a considerably different level of race awareness.
The app is completely free. Developer Jim Britton has maintained it as an open-source project for years, and there are optional donations available if you find it useful. There are no locked features and no subscription.
How to Download and Install Crew Chief for iRacing
The official Crew Chief download is available at thecrewchief.org. The most current stable version is always listed there. Download the installer, run it, and the application installs to Program Files automatically without additional configuration.
When you open Crew Chief for the first time, it asks you to select your sim. Choose iRacing from the dropdown. The app will attempt to find your iRacing installation automatically. If it does not locate it, you can point it to your iRacing folder manually through the Properties panel. The default path is typically C:\iRacing.
Connecting Crew Chief to iRacing
Crew Chief reads live data through iRacing’s shared memory interface, which is active whenever iRacing is running. There is no special iRacing configuration required on your end. Open iRacing, open Crew Chief, click Start Application, and the two apps connect within a few seconds.
You will hear a brief audio confirmation when Crew Chief successfully connects to a live session. From that point it stays active for the session and disconnects cleanly when you exit the car.
One setting to check before your first race is the audio output device. By default, Crew Chief sends its audio to whatever Windows has set as the default. If you run iRacing through a headset, set Crew Chief to the same audio device so the calls mix with your game audio. This option is in the Properties panel in the main Crew Chief window.
Key Settings to Configure for iRacing
Most of Crew Chief works correctly out of the box with iRacing. However, a few settings are worth adjusting specifically for sim racing use.
The most important change is disabling the iRacing built-in spotter. Running both spotters simultaneously creates doubled calls, which gets disorienting fast during a race. Turn off the iRacing spotter by going to iRacing options, selecting Sound, and unchecking Enable Spotter. Let Crew Chief handle all spotter calls from that point.
Fuel reporting is one of the most practical features Crew Chief adds. It tracks your average fuel consumption per lap and projects how many laps remain on your current load. You can also set a pit stop target in the fuel settings, and Crew Chief will adjust its calls to match your strategy. It will alert you when you are running low without you needing to monitor any display.
Damage reporting works automatically after contact. Crew Chief reads iRacing’s damage model data and calls out which part of the car was affected. Because iRacing’s own damage HUD can be hard to read clearly during a race, this is a useful backup.
Gap calls to cars ahead and behind are active by default. Crew Chief monitors relative time in real time and calls out when a car behind is closing, holding steady, or losing ground. In race conditions, this lets you keep your focus on driving rather than watching the relative display.
Voice Commands
Crew Chief supports voice input through Windows speech recognition. You can ask it questions during a live session and receive spoken answers in real time. The app is designed to understand natural language, so you do not need to memorize exact command phrases.
The most commonly used voice queries are fuel-related. Asking how many laps are left returns the current projection based on your consumption average. Asking about tyre temperatures gives you per-corner temperature data. Asking about the car behind returns the live gap. Asking about damage returns a summary of any issues detected since the last call.
To enable voice recognition, go to Settings in the main Crew Chief window and turn on Enable Voice Recognition. Set your microphone as the default recording device in Windows beforehand. The app calibrates to your voice over a few sentences and handles sim racing terminology accurately once trained.
Custom Voice Packs
One popular optional feature is the ability to swap the default engineer voice for a community voice pack. These packs are available through the official Crew Chief forums and the broader iRacing community, and many are styled after well-known racing engineers and broadcasters.
Installing a voice pack requires downloading the pack, extracting the folder, and dropping it into the Crew Chief voice packs directory. The correct path is listed in Properties under Voice Pack Folder. Restart Crew Chief after installing, then select the new pack from the Voice Pack dropdown in settings.
The default voice is clear and professional. The community packs add personality without changing any of the functional data calls. Both options work equally well for actual racing purposes.
Common Setup Problems and Fixes
The most common issue new Crew Chief users run into is double spotter calls. This happens because both the iRacing built-in spotter and Crew Chief’s spotter are running simultaneously. The fix is to disable the iRacing spotter as described above, and the double-call issue disappears immediately.
Audio routing is the second most common problem. If Crew Chief outputs to your computer speakers while iRacing runs through a headset, you will miss the calls during a race. Check the output device in Crew Chief Properties and match it to your iRacing audio device.
If you get no audio at all on the first run, the audio device selection is the most likely cause. The output dropdown in Properties lists all available Windows audio devices. Select the same device your iRacing audio runs through, then restart Crew Chief for the change to take effect.
Why Crew Chief Is Worth Installing
You can race iRacing without Crew Chief, and many drivers do. However, the information it provides during a race changes how you manage sessions. Knowing your fuel situation without looking at a display, hearing a call when the car behind is closing fast, and getting a damage report after contact all reduce the mental load that would otherwise go to managing information instead of driving.
It is free, actively developed, and used by drivers at every level of iRacing. Install it, run a few practice sessions to get used to the voice calls, and it will become a permanent part of your iRacing setup.
