It Started With Race Weekend Predictions
One of my favourite parts of following motorsport has never just been the racing itself. It’s everything around it. The build-up during race week, the discussions, the predictions, and the confidence people somehow find before lights out.
If you follow motorsport with friends, you probably know exactly what I mean. Group chats suddenly become active on Friday. Somebody is convinced this is finally their weekend. Someone predicts a shock podium that sounds ridiculous at the time. Someone else somehow acts like they’ve already cracked strategy better than the teams have.
Then by Sunday evening everyone suddenly becomes very quiet… or incredibly loud depending on how right they were.
That back-and-forth is part of the fun. The debates, the “I called it” moments, and the inevitable messages when somebody gets something spectacularly wrong. It adds another layer to race weekends.
The problem is that those moments disappear quickly. They live in WhatsApp chats, Discord servers, or random conversations and then they’re gone by Monday morning.
I kept coming back to the same thought: what if there was a way to turn those predictions into an actual game?
Not a huge commitment. Not homework. Just something fun to play with friends.
Fantasy Motorsport Can Sometimes Feel Like Work
I’ve tried a lot of fantasy games over the years and there are some genuinely great ones out there. But I found myself seeing a similar pattern happen over and over again.
Everyone joins excited at the start. Friends create leagues. People spend time building teams and planning strategies. For a few weeks everyone is invested.
Then life gets in the way.
Someone forgets to update their team. Somebody misses a weekend. Someone drops too far behind and loses interest. Before long, half the league has disappeared.
Season-long fantasy formats can be brilliant, but they can also become a commitment. Miss a few races and it starts to feel like you’ve already fallen too far behind.
I wanted something that felt lighter and easier to pick up. Something that kept the fun and competition without feeling like another thing you had to manage every week.
The Idea Was Surprisingly Simple
The idea eventually became:
What if fantasy motorsport focused on each race rather than an entire season?
No budgets. No transfers. No spending half an hour changing lineups. Just one question:
Who finishes on the podium?
Three predictions and you’re done.
Around the same time I was listening to a lot of P1 with Matt & Tommy. Like a lot of motorsport fans, I found myself listening to race discussions, predictions and wildly confident opinions that occasionally aged terribly after lights out.
And honestly, it reinforced the idea.
A huge part of motorsport isn’t just watching races. It’s the conversations around them. The debates. The predictions. The moments where fans become experts for an entire weekend.
Pit Crew started making more sense because fans already play prediction games naturally. They’re just doing it in group chats, podcasts and conversations already.
So What Is Pit Crew?
Pit Crew is built around race weekends and friendly competition.
The idea is intentionally simple. You create a league, invite your friends, make your podium predictions before the race begins and then watch things unfold.
But what surprised me while building it was how quickly small predictions become bigger stories.
Once predictions lock before lights out, races suddenly feel different. You start caring about situations you probably wouldn’t have noticed before. A late overtake matters because it changes league standings. A surprise podium suddenly means your friend is about to jump ahead of you.
Then the leaderboard starts creating stories of its own.
Someone starts the season strongly and becomes impossible to catch. Somebody climbs back from nowhere. Somebody gets completely carried away after one good race and suddenly thinks they’re untouchable.
Temporary rivalries appear.
Bragging rights become weirdly important.
And somehow every race starts feeling like it matters a little more.
That was the feeling I wanted Pit Crew to create.
Building Something I Actually Want To Use
Pit Crew is an indie side project. No big company. No giant roadmap meetings. No team of fifty people deciding what should happen next.
Just me building something I genuinely wanted to use.
That’s one of the things I love about side projects. You get to build around ideas that simply feel fun. You can add features because they make experiences better rather than because they tick a business box somewhere.
Some of my favourite ideas aren’t even fully live yet.
Things like shareable result cards after race weekends. Rivalries that build naturally over time. Statistics that reveal strange prediction habits. Streak systems. More reasons for friendly competition.
I also want community feedback to shape the app.
One of the best parts about indie projects is how quickly ideas can become reality. Someone suggests a feature. You think about it for a day or two. Suddenly you’re building it.
That kind of collaboration feels much more exciting than quietly disappearing and building behind closed doors.
This Is Lap One
Pit Crew started as a small idea. Just a way to make race weekend predictions with friends feel more fun.
But side projects have a habit of growing.
Especially when people get invested. Especially when competition starts. Especially when somebody starts talking trash after one lucky prediction.
So this is the beginning of building in public.
I’ll be sharing updates, ideas, wins, mistakes and everything else that comes with trying to build an indie project from scratch.
If you enjoy motorsport, prediction games, friendly competition, or simply following projects as they’re being built, I’d love for you to stick around.
And if you have ideas, send them.
Seriously.
The best features often start with random conversations.
This is only lap one.