James French Racing.
Brand site and coaching booking platform for a Daytona-winning, Asian Le Mans champion pro racing driver and coach.
The problem.
James had the resume of a top-tier endurance driver and a growing coaching business, but the web presence to match neither.
He needed a site that did three jobs at once: a serious brand statement for sponsors and series owners, a coaching booking platform for the driver-development side of the business, and a merch / content surface for the fan side. All on a budget that wasn't a sponsorship deal.
Approach.
Lead with the driver, not the dev. The first thing on every page is an in-car or on-track shot, full-bleed, no apology. Cool blue accents borrowed from the helmet livery. WordPress underneath, because the client needs to maintain it long after I'm gone.
- Custom theme rather than off-the-shelf: the kerned-out "JAMES FRENCH" wordmark, the helmet-blue accent, the stat blocks under the hero were all specced to the brand, not retrofitted from a template.
- Coaching booking flow integrated into the same site instead of bouncing to a third-party scheduler.
- Career page structured so journalists, series owners, and team principals can find the relevant credentials in under five seconds.
What I built.
- Hero with full-bleed onboard cinematic, layered eyebrow + name + stat bar, designed for desktop displays at trade events as much as for browsers.
- Career section with a structured timeline of championships, wins, and major endurance results.
- Coaching booking: track + session selection, calendar integration, payment.
- Tracks page: the 30+ circuits James has raced on, sortable.
- Merch integration with fulfillment routing.
- SEO foundation: schema markup for the athlete profile, optimized landing pages for "racing coaching at <track>" queries.
Results.
A site James can take into a sponsor meeting without apologizing for, with a coaching booking flow that runs without me being in the loop. The build was specced so the client can update content, swap photos, and add new track pages himself.
What I learned.
When the subject of the site is the brand, get out of the way. The wordmark, the helmet-blue, and a wall of in-car footage carry more weight than any amount of clever copy or animation. My job was to frame the asset, not compete with it.