An Actually Good Autocross Timing App (and it's free!) - AutoX Live



An Actually Good Autocross Timing App (and it's free!) - AutoX Live

TLDR: go download app autox.romangarms.com, it's on TestFlight.
My AutoX app running on an iPhone!

    I'm big into racing cars, as I'm sure will surprise no one (see the Garage tab on my website), but I've always been disappointed with the ability to compare your lap times with friends at the event. At the Golden Gate Lotus Club events, they've got a website updated in real time, but it's just a massive spreadsheet that sends you to the top every time it refreshes.

    Worse, the app I use in Washington for the Evergreen Speedway Autocross has a $1.50/month subscription required to use the app! It's pretty cheap, but I've paid that price for at least 10 different events now.

    Mind you, all of the actual timing data is publicly accessible for free...

The Feature Set

    The obvious thing is make a free app. But beyond that, there's a lot of other changes I want to make. I want to look at just my own times, or have a leaderboard of just me and my friends, or get notifications when new times are published!

Favoriting yourself, and your friends!

    The immediate first step was to add the ability to mark yourself and other friends. Unless you're near the best in-class, or in the entire event (in which case, congrats!), you're probably only trying to compare your times against a handful of people. Here, you can "star" a handful of users and see that small leaderboard, or even open a dedicated compare view against you and your rival! 
    And don't worry, you can rename drivers too, so you aren't stuck comparing the 3rd "Black BMW" and 8th "Silver Mazda".

 

More supported events!

    Beyond GGLC and Evergreen AutoX, we support all events from Speedhive (more organizations supported soon!), and the ability to create custom leaderboards, like our Acceleration Board. You can even create your own leaderboards between friends, either public or with a share code. Please don't use this for street racing! :)



Detailed per-driver info

    You can see best lap, position in class, position overall, previous laps, and everything, for both events and your own leaderboards! I'll be adding more graphs and stats soon.

Bonus features! Apple Watch app! Notifications! CarPlay?

    Lastly, a few things a website approach like GGLC has could never support. We've got an Apple Watch app that shows you latest + best run, along with your starred friends! When a new time for you or a friend gets published, you can choose to get notifications as well.

    CarPlay support is a different beast, as Apple tends not to approve apps outside of navigation/music apps. However, we might be able to get hacky. By using the Now Playing API, we can show your latest time + stats in the song and artist name on CarPlay. This feature hasn't dropped yet, but I'm looking into it.

Want to try out the app?

    I've got a dedicated website! Check out autox.romangarms.com to view more and join the Testflight Open Beta. Check out the GitHub repo (and give it a star!) at github.com/romangarms/Evergreen-AutoX-App.
    
    If you encounter bugs, please report them on GitHub or the TestFlight bug reporting system! I'll be continuing work on this app after I go to my next few autocrosses and see what issues crop up. 

    If you're a member of Slugs on Wheels (the UC Santa Cruz car club), reach out to me and I'm happy to add you to the Internal Beta to test extra features early!

    Happy autocrossing!

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