Building Dirt Slingin Tech: A Brutally Honest Journey Through Failure, Frustration, and Unshakable Passion

When I first got into dirt track racing, I barely knew what most of the parts on the car did—let alone how to set one up. I was frustrated, confused, and tired of scribbling changes on paper only to forget what I had done the week before. That’s where the idea for Dirt Slingin Tech came from: an app to save race car setups electronically. I thought, “There’s gotta be a better way.”

But easier said than done.

The first version of Dirt Slingin Tech was… bad. Just bad. It was a clunky website, only usable on desktop, with an awful design. I didn’t even know what should be on a setup sheet—what should racers track? What really matters to them? I was trying to solve a problem I didn’t fully understand yet.

Eventually, I realized mobile was the future, so I taught myself how to build an app. After Googling around, I found React Native with Expo. It was my first real attempt at mobile development—and I built my first version of the app with it.

But then came the next roadblock: publishing it. I had no idea how to release an app. I was rejected by Apple and Google multiple times. The requirements, guidelines, policies—I had to learn it all the hard way. No mentor. No guide. Just trial, error, and YouTube videos at 2 a.m.

When the app finally launched, I thought the floodgates would open. Thousands of racers would sign up, the money would roll in, and I’d ride off into the sunset as a successful founder.

No one signed up.

And I mean no one.

Around that time, I landed a job as a mobile engineer at a company that used Flutter. I saw how clean, fast, and maintainable Flutter was compared to React Native—so I made a painful decision. I rewrote the entire app from scratch. Line by line. It was grueling. But it made the app better.

Then, for a moment, I thought I struck gold. MyRacePass showed some interest in the app. I let my imagination run wild—thinking I was about to sell the app, make a fortune, maybe even partner with them. But it turns out that excitement existed only in my head.

Not long after, a well-known company released an app that looked eerily similar to mine. I was crushed. I was naive about competition and didn’t know how to handle it. I let it get under my skin. But that frustration eventually turned into fuel. Now, instead of whining, I just build a better product.

Later, I came up with what I thought was a game-changing feature: data logging. GPS, sensors, the works. But when I looked into it, I discovered that the two main sanctioning bodies—IMCA and USRA—don’t allow it. Still, it’s a killer tool for beginners and weekend warriors (like me) who aren’t worried about making tech.

Somewhere along the way—about five years into this—I discovered the concept of marketing. That’s right. I built and rebuilt an app for half a decade before I even thought about how to market it. Looking back, that’s probably the biggest mistake I made: not building a community from day one.

The dirt track racing world isn’t easy to break into with tech. Many racers still see innovation as an unfair advantage, even though teams use pull-down rigs, shock dynos, and laser alignment tools in the shop. It’s more of a mindset problem than a rules problem—the older generation still makes the rules, and they don’t want to budge.

And yet, here I am. Still pushing. Still building. Still racing.

I’m fully aware that the revenue ceiling for this type of software is low. The market is small. The rule books are rigid. But I love racing. And I love tech. That mix is rare, and even though the odds are stacked against me, I’m determined to turn Dirt Slingin Tech into something that helps thousands of racers.

Even if it never scales like I hope, I’ll know I built something that solved my problem—and maybe it’ll solve someone else’s too.