Help Docs / RacePrep / Tutorials

RacePrep Tutorials

Ten short tutorials that take you from installing RacePrep to a team, a car, a maintenance plan and a stocked trailer. Work through them in order, or pick the one you need.

Before you start

You need a phone, an email address you can check, and one race car. It also helps to know which of the two ways you are coming in: a crew chief starting a team of their own, or a crew member who was invited by someone else. Crew members do not pay anything and can skip the trial and subscription steps.

RacePrep runs on iPhone and Android. Everything is stored on the server, so the whole crew sees your entries the next time their phone loads that screen. Pull down to refresh if you want it now.

The ten tutorials

  1. Set up your account (5 minutes)
  2. Look around the demo team (5 minutes)
  3. Start your own team (5 minutes)
  4. Add your first race car (5 minutes)
  5. Set up what RacePrep tracks (15 minutes)
  6. Run your first weekly inspection (10 minutes)
  7. Log a race night and see what came due (10 minutes)
  8. Keep the trailer stocked (10 minutes)
  9. Bring your crew in (5 minutes)
  10. Make it yours (5 minutes)
Every step links to the matching part of the RacePrep User Guide, which describes each field and button in detail.

Tutorial 1: Set up your account

About 5 minutes. By the end you are signed in, your email is verified, and you have seen what the app can do.

  1. Install RacePrep from the App Store or Google Play and open it. The animation plays, then the welcome screen appears.
  2. Choose how to sign in. Sign in with Google works everywhere, Sign in with Apple on iPhone and iPad, and Other login methods reveals email sign-in and Register with Email.
  3. Registering with email: type Your Name, Email and a password of at least 6 characters. Enter an Invite code only if someone gave you one. Tick the terms box and tap Create Account.
  4. Swipe through the nine-page Product Tour, or tap Skip to jump to the last page.
  5. Open your email and tap the verification link. Verification is needed before you can buy anything.

Guide: Create an account & sign in · Welcome to RacePrep

Tutorial 2: Look around the demo team

About 5 minutes. By the end you know your way around, using sample data you cannot break.

  1. On the last page of the tour, tap Start Demo. The dialog Welcome to the demo! explains that the demo data resets daily. Tap Explore Demo.
  2. You land on the Dashboard. Swipe the car photos sideways to change car, and watch the cards underneath change with it.
  3. Tap through the five tabs along the bottom: Dashboard, Inspection, Task List, Shopping and Parts.
  4. Open the side menu with the button at the top left. Note the banner reading "You are in DEMO MODE" on the dashboard, and that Manage My Race Team and My Subscriptions are greyed out here.
  5. Tap a dashboard card to see how an item is set up: the count, the two thresholds and the history.
Nothing you enter on the demo team is yours to keep. Start your own team before you record real work.

Guide: Navigating the app · Demo mode, free trial and subscriptions

Tutorial 3: Start your own team

About 5 minutes. By the end you have a team of your own, on a free trial or a subscription.

  1. Open the side menu and tap Get free Trial, or tap the demo banner on the dashboard. Either opens the subscriptions screen, titled Start Free or Go Pro while a trial is on offer.
  2. If the page says "To continue, you need to verify your email", tap Send Again, open the link in the email, then pull down to refresh.
  3. On the Free Trial tab, tap Start a free trial. To buy instead, use the Yearly (save 30%) or Monthly tab and complete the store sheet.
  4. The dialog Your 30-Day Free Trial Starts Now! or Welcome to your Full Subscription! appears. Tap the button on it.
  5. After a purchase the app opens Manage Race Cars. After a free trial it finishes on the Dashboard, so open the side menu and tap Manage Race Cars for the next tutorial.
Crew members skip this. If a crew chief invited you, jump to Bring your crew in and read it from the crew member's side.

Guide: Demo mode, free trial and subscriptions · Subscriptions and purchases

Tutorial 4: Add your first race car

About 5 minutes. By the end your car is in the app, with its photo and the unit it counts in.

  1. Open the side menu and tap Manage Race Cars.
  2. Tap Add a New Race Car. Type the car name in the dialog and tap Add.
  3. Open the car and set its Unit, the thing you count on this car, such as laps or hours. Every card on the car uses it.
  4. Choose the race class. RacePrep uses it to suggest a starting set of maintenance items.
  5. Add a photo so the car is easy to pick out in the carousel. Choose use Camera or use Gallery.
The camera opens facing you. Flip it to the rear camera before you shoot the car.
Give a second car its own name now if you run more than one. The car you are looking at is the car everything applies to.

Guide: Manage Race Cars

Tutorial 5: Set up what RacePrep tracks

About 15 minutes. This is the one that pays for itself. By the end the dashboard knows what wears out on your car and when.

Switch on the suggested items

  1. Go to the Dashboard and tap the gear in the header row.
  2. Under "Racers like you track some of the following items:", flip the switch on an item you want to watch.
  3. The edit screen opens. Fill in the count already on the item, the Laps Maintenance Threshold and the Laps Notification Threshold, whose labels carry your car's unit, then tap the orange check.
  4. Repeat for each item. A car needs at least five items switched on before RacePrep counts it as built.

Add anything of your own

  1. Tap Create Custom Dashboard Card.
  2. Fill in Item name, the count on it and both thresholds.
  3. Tap the orange check to save, or the plus to save and start another.

Copy a car you already did

If you run two cars the same, open the second car's configurator and tap Clone From Existing Car. Cloning replaces the second car's cards and sets its counts to zero. It only offers cars that count in the same unit.

Set the notification threshold below the maintenance threshold, for example 80 laps and 100 laps. The app does not enforce it, and a card set the other way round never turns orange.

Guide: Set up what you track · The Dashboard

Tutorial 6: Run your first weekly inspection

About 10 minutes. By the end you have a checklist for the car and you know how the crew works through it.

  1. Open the Inspection tab and pick the car in the photo strip.
  2. If the car has no checklist yet, tap the gear in the title bar and switch on the items you want, grouped by area of the car.
  3. Go back to the checklist and work down it. Tap a row to tick it, and tap it again to untick.
  4. Use the circle beside an area heading to tick off a whole area at once.
  5. Tap the lightning bolt on a row to note the parts a job needs. They go on the shopping list.
  6. After the race weekend, tap the circular arrow in the title bar and confirm Reset tasks to clear the ticks for next week.
Your photo appears on every row you tick, so the crew chief can see who checked what.

Guide: Run the weekly inspection · Choose your inspection items

Tutorial 7: Log a race night and see what came due

About 10 minutes. By the end the laps are on the car, the dashboard has moved, and you have serviced the first item that came due.

Add the laps

  1. Open the Dashboard and make sure the right car is showing.
  2. Tap Update All Laps. The word follows the car's unit, so it may read Update All Hours.
  3. Type the number of laps you ran.
  4. Tap Race Date and pick the date from the calendar. Future dates cannot be picked.
  5. Type the track or series into Race Track/Series.
  6. Leave Reset Weekly Checklist ticked to clear the inspection for next week, or untick it.
  7. Tap Update Laps.

The laps are added to every card on that car at once. If RacePrep questions the entry you get an "Are you sure?" dialog with a message explaining why. Read it, then choose Yes, Continue or No, Ignore this change.

See what moved

Back on the dashboard, look at the bars. Green means there is life left, orange means the item is coming due, and red means it is due now. The number in the marker is the real count.

Service an item and reset it

  1. Tap the card that turned red.
  2. Do the work on the car, then tap Reset to Zero and confirm on Maintenance complete?
  3. Tap the orange check to save. The bar goes back to green and the history keeps the record.
The reset is only stored when you save. Leaving with Discard changes throws it away.

Guide: Log laps after a race · Service an item and reset its laps · Race History

Tutorial 8: Keep the trailer stocked

About 10 minutes. By the end you have a parts library, a shopping list the crew shares, and jobs written down.

Put a part in the library

  1. Open the Parts tab and tap the plus in the title bar.
  2. Fill in Part name/Part description, then the Category, and as much of the part number, manufacturer, supplier and SKU as you know.
  3. Paste the supplier's page into Shopping Link URL. That is what the Shop button opens later.
  4. Leave Also add to Shopping List ticked if you need one now, then tap the orange check.
Open the Category list and choose your category, even when the right one already appears. A category that was only shown is not saved.

Fill the shopping list

  1. Open the Shopping tab and tap Search for or add a new item.
  2. Type what you need. Tap the cart icon on a part from your library, or the plus on the "Add" row to add something new by name.
  3. Set the quantity with the arrows and tap Add to Shopping List.
  4. Back on the list, tap Shop to open the supplier page, then tap the row to cross it off once it is bought. Shop disappears once a row is crossed off.
  5. When the order is in, tap the broom and confirm Clear Shopping List to clear the crossed-off lines.

Write down a job

  1. Open the Task List tab and tap the orange plus beside Action Now.
  2. Type the job into Task name, tick the cars it applies to, and tap the orange check.
  3. Tick the job when it is done, then use the broom to clear it.
The shopping list and the parts library belong to the team, so the whole crew sees them.

Guide: Parts and Supplies · Shopping list · Task List

Tutorial 9: Bring your crew in

About 5 minutes. By the end your crew are on the team and seeing the same lists as you.

If you own the team

  1. Open the side menu and tap Manage My Race Team.
  2. Type a crew member's address into Enter Crew Member Email. Add a row for each extra person.
  3. Tap Send Invites. Each person gets an email with an 8 character code.
  4. Watch the crew list. People appear straight away marked PENDING, and switch to ACTIVE once they join. You can resend a pending invite, cut off access later with Remove, or give it back with Unblock.

If you were invited

  1. Install RacePrep and create your own account.
  2. Open the side menu and tap Join a race team.
  3. Type the 8 character code from the email and tap Join the Team.
  4. The dialog You joined a Race Team! confirms it. You now see the owner's cars, checklist, tasks and lists.

Switching between teams

The Select Race Team dropdown at the top of the side menu lists every team you belong to. Picking one reloads the dashboard for that team.

Crew members pay nothing. Only the team owner holds a subscription.

Guide: Manage My Race Team · Join a race team

Tutorial 10: Make it yours

About 5 minutes. By the end your profile is filled in and the app looks the way you want.

  1. Open the side menu and tap My Profile, or tap your photo at the top right of the dashboard.
  2. Tap Upload Profile Photo and pick a picture. Your photo is what the crew sees on the rows you tick off.
  3. Fill in Name, Phone and your Time zone, then tap Update.
  4. Decide about Monday Morning Recap Emails. It is on by default.
  5. Change your password from Change My Password if you want a different one.
  6. Back in the side menu, tap the brightness button at the bottom to switch between the dark and light themes.
Save with Update before you leave. The app reloads your account when it comes back to the front, and that clears anything unsaved.

Guide: My Profile · Navigating the app

Video walkthroughs

The side menu entry Tutorial Video opens the RacePrep playlist on YouTube, where the same ground is covered on screen. You can also go straight to the RacePrep tutorial playlist.

Still stuck?

If something here did not work, the troubleshooting section of the Help Center lists the messages RacePrep can show and what to do about each one. If that does not sort it, contact us and tell us your device, the version at the bottom of the side menu, and what you were doing.

One help center for every app — pick your app on the left.