I'm loving MAME, now that it is set up and working pretty much perfectly, but I have a question that's been bothering me for a while, what's the best way to handle racing games?

The arcade had some great racers I'd love to try out, and I even bought an old wheel just for that purpose, but it's a pain to configure the controls for each individual title, is there a simple way to do this for multiple games? By the time I figure out what axis is what, where the brakes are listed, etc., I'm usually burnt out on playing.

Don't get me wrong, I like tweaking as much as the next guy, but it'd be great if there was some sort of resource for controller configurations for MAME, sort of like what the Steam Controller is doing. I understand if this isn't possible, given the variety and wildly different standards MAME embraces. In fact, this would be killer for any and all games.

Also, I'm thinking of building a cabinet, but I'm wondering if anyone has integrated a standard control board, a racing cab, and a light gun? I don't see how it would work, but I've seen some crazy cabs so I figured I'd ask.