About
Where It Began
Thanksgiving 2009 marked the start of my love for motorsport. As my dad and I were channel surfing, a nail-biting ALMS race caught our attention. The competition was fierce - Jan Magnussen in a Corvette was battling Jörg Bergmeister in a Flying Lizard Porsche for the lead at Laguna Seca. We watched with bated breath as Magnussen relentlessly pressured Bergmeister. Eventually, Magnussen made a bold move down the inside of turn 1, taking the lead. But his glory was short-lived. A radio message ordered him to give back the lead after he shortcutted the track. Magnussen had to start again from scratch, with time running out.
The race came down to the last corner, and we were in awe. Magnussen bumped the back of Bergmeister to get a run to the line, but Bergmeister wasn't pleased. He drove Magnussen to the pit wall, causing him to spin across the track and collide in a spectacular wreck at the finish line. Our jaws dropped in disbelief - it was incredible to witness such a thrilling and hard-fought battle end in fireworks. I was hooked, and Corvette gained a fan for life.
After discovering our love for motorsport, my brother and I started following various racing series. The Bathurst 12 hour is a particular favorite of ours, with cars navigating Mount Panorama for 12 hours and kissing the walls along the way - it's truly a sight to behold. In 2017, we watched Craig Lowndes, Jamie Whincup, and Toni Vilander take home the victory, and we eagerly anticipated the next race.
But the following year, we made a rookie mistake. We planned to wake up early to catch the race, only to realize the night before that the start time didn't make sense - how could the race begin in the morning for both Australia and Canada? Embarrassed, we turned on the stream to find that the race had already been going for an hour.
From then on, I made a point to keep my calendar up to date. Many racing series, like IMSA and Formula 1, allow you to sync their schedules to your calendar. I thought I had everything under control - until my brother texted me at 9:15AM on the day of the 2022 Sebring 12 hour, saying the calendar had led him astray. It claimed the race would start at 1:30PM, but in reality, it had already begun at 8:10AM. The IMSA website had the correct information, but our calendar failed us.
Orange is the calendar from IMSA’s website and green is Race Controls.
Scratch Your Own Itch
As a software developer, I spend my days solving other people's problems, so I decided to create something to solve my own. That's when I came up with Race Control. The main goal of Race Control is to showcase different popular racing series (the ones I personally follow, for now), and provide information on when and where events are happening, including session times, streaming availability, and how to access it.
One thing I found frustrating about motorsports websites is that they tend to show a lot of news, making it challenging to find an actual schedule. Additionally, they often display local track times, making it unclear how to convert them to your local time zone. With Race Control, my aim was to make the schedule front and center and present session times in your local time zone to eliminate any confusion.
If you're a motorsports fan like me, I hope Race Control can help you keep track of your favorite series. Please feel free to share your feedback with me.