A motorsport enthusiast who taught himself programming during lockdown has built a platform that’s changing how fans watch racing – and helping drivers with limited budgets build their careers.
Dave Ellis launched The Racing Line two years ago after becoming frustrated with how difficult it was to follow motorsport during the pandemic.
Unlike mainstream sports, motorsport has no centralised way to watch events, with timetables and streams scattered across multiple websites.
The 41-year-old, from Musselburgh, Scotland, decided to learn software development from scratch and build the solution himself.
“Motorsport is a difficult sport to keep up with,” Dave told Founder Insights.
“Unlike football, or rugby, or similar sports, there is not a nice structured way of watching events.
“Timetables and streams are spread across multiple sites, and often in the wrong time zone.
“It’s hostile to fans, and I wanted to make it easier.”
Before launching his business, Dave was teaching Major Emergency Management at an oil and gas training company, later becoming Head of IT at a software development studio.
“COVID suddenly gave me a large amount of free time,” he said.
“I normally fill free time with watching motorsport, but that became increasingly difficult as the sport adjusted to the COVID issues.
“As it became harder to watch I wanted a solution, and there wasn’t a good app for it – so decided to learn programming to build it myself.”
His first version was completed during COVID, though it was barely a minimum viable product.
The second version, launched two years ago, is now exploding in popularity.
The Racing Line provides streams and timetables for over 200 racing series, converting them to users’ time zones with notifications – something unheard of in the motorsport world.
But the platform has evolved beyond helping fans.
Dave now works with drivers, teams and series with limited budgets to promote them in front of race fans and help build fan followings to fund their careers.
“Marketing is more challenging than I expected,” he said.
“I thought building the product would be the hardest — turns out I’m a really good product guy and have built something great.
“Marketing it to people is more challenging.”
His first customers came through Instagram ads, while racing clients came from attending events and chatting to drivers.
But two hurdles stood in his way: learning software development from scratch, and breaking into motorsport’s tight-knit community.
“Motorsport is a relatively small community where everybody knows each other,” Dave said.
“As an outsider, it’s hard to break in.”
Things started clicking in 2024, with growth exceeding 300%.
For the first time, drivers, series and advertisers began approaching him rather than the other way around.
Breaking 1,000 members with no funding or serious marketing efforts was a milestone he’s particularly proud of.
“The positive app reviews from fans and nice messages are great,” he said.
“Fans have needed this for a long time, and it’s great they appreciate it.”
Beyond the business success, Dave says the biggest reward has been fulfilment.
“Motorsport is a life-long passion and now I get to work in it,” he said.
His biggest mistake? Assuming marketing would be easy.
“It’s not, and there’s a reason marketing teams get paid good money for good work,” he said.
His goal is ambitious but simple: reaching 100,000 members.
“I just want more people to watch and enjoy motorsport,” he said.
Looking ahead, Dave wants The Racing Line to become the default product fans use to watch racing.
“I want it to have the reputation of ‘oh I just use The Racing Line for that,'” he said.
