Website Rebuild Progress
Jason Karlavige
We’ve been hard at work behind the scenes rebuilding Speedway Collective from the ground up, and wanted to share an update with where we are at.
Before diving into the updates, I wanted to touch on how this website came to be. A few of us friends played fantasy NASCAR on a separate platform until it shut down around 2016. Without a platform for the upcoming season, we set out to build Speedway Collective to continue playing. The goal was to simply have a place to play fantasy NASCAR with a group of 5-10 of us. I never envisioned we would have the amount of people playing on the site that we do today. This past race at Nashville, we had 433 Cup entries for the fantasy race.
While that is awesome to see, the site simply wasn't build to support that kind of traffic, and you all have definitely felt the pain with dealing with this website, especially on race day when we have the largest traffic spikes.
Before this season, I was considering shutting down the site. The current platform is old, and a pain to maintain and update. However, seeing a big wave of members join us this season gave us the motivation to keep this site running, and rebuild it to have a much improved experience. You are all the reason this site is still active, and I really do appreciate your patience in dealing with the headaches the current site gives us on a weekly basis.
🚧 Under the Hood: A New Speedway Collective Is Coming
Whether you're a fantasy veteran or just getting started, the new platform has been designed to bring you a faster, more flexible, and more immersive fantasy NASCAR experience. Here’s what’s changing, and how you can get involved.
🆕 A Complete Rebuild on a New Platform
We didn’t just tweak the old site — we rebuilt the entire experience. The new platform brings modern tech under the hood for improved performance, cleaner design, and a better user experience across the board.
⚡ Faster Performance
Nobody wants to wait around for the site to load, especially on race day. A priority for the new site is ensuring the live race updates will load in real time, no matter how many users are viewing the site. You will be able to check the race results any time throughout the race to see the full fantasy running order.
🧢 Individual Rosters for Each League
A big shift on the new site - each league will have its own independent roster, so you can tailor your picks based on your competition. On the current site, you can only set one roster for Cup, Xfinity, and trucks. The new version will allow you to set a unique lineup for each league, even for two or more leagues in the same series.
🛠️ More Options for League Admins
The new platform introduces expanded tools for admins, allowing league admins to customize the rules for their league. This will include customizing the number of starts a member has for each driver. Admins will easily be able to add/remove members, with a simpler invite flow.
League history will carry over from one season to another. This means when a new season is ready to begin, league admins will be able to reactivate the existing league, while maintaining the members. This will also allow for historical league data, allowing users to look back at previous years results, stats and standings.
We are also open to your feedback on what other control you would like to have as a league admin. I will have a note at the end of this post on how you can submit feedback.
🔐 Simpler Login & Account Management
We’ve streamlined the login process to make getting started and staying signed in seamless. Less friction, more racing. No more having to remember a password.
So...When Can You Try It?
The new Speedway Collective will replace the current site starting next season full time. But the goal is to have signups available for early gameplay this season so you can test it out and get a feel for what's to come.
The cool part? If you're reading this, you are viewing the new platform! The fantasy part of the site is in progress behind the scenes. However, we wanted to get the blog going to share progress updates with everyone in the meantime.
Fantasy data, such as leagues and lineups, will be entirely new on the new site. Picture it as a completely separate fantasy site moving forward. The only data I am retaining (at least initially), is the real-life driver results and stats. Anything related to fantasy leagues and scoring will be new on this version of the site.
We are a week or two out from beginning to take the first initial test drives of the new site internally. Once we feel it is in a good spot, we will open the site to members to signup, create leagues, and begin setting lineups.
Your feedback will be crucial and valuable here.
You will be able to help shape the future of this site. I will be setting up a way for members to submit feedback, and report bugs while trying out this new site. This will allow us to refine and improve the site in prep for next season.
Stay tuned for more updates. Thanks again for being a part of this fantasy group, and I am looking forward to sharing more with you soon!
