Rawe Ceek - is it a race week?

Last month, I bought a domain: raweceek.eu. It refers to a confusing image posted by Ferrari on Twitter ahead of a Formula 1 race in 2020. The text on the image can be read as both "race week" and "rawe ceek", and it quickly became a meme in the community.

2020 British Grand Prix: Race week / Rawe ceek

I didn't have anything specific in mind before the purchase. I wanted to create something fun, a lighthearted website that could be of use, but wouldn't require regular maintenance. And so the feature was born from the meme's name: visitors should be able to quickly see whether the current week is a race week or not!

For that, I created a simple API that returns the next racing session: practice, qualification, or the race itself. This is how a typical Formula 1 weekend is structured. Naturally, if the next session happens to be this week, we can conclude that the gods have blessed us with a rawe ceek. However, the backend service is not of interest here.

If you've already visited the webpage, you saw how silly it is compared to my boring blog! I added a colorful background image with a cartoonish red car and an animated Christmas garland. There are banners from the late '90s and early '00s, they will gladly lead you to a Macarena music video! I generated some clip art, inserted several GIFs, found a working visitor counter, and set up a guest book. Don't hesitate to leave a message! I tried to replicate the look and feel of the internet from my youth as I remember it, although it surely fails to capture that era authentically. Yet, the feedback I got on our IRC channel was rather positive!

I enjoyed working on raweceek.eu. In both work and personal projects, it's always about the end goal and quality. But with this venture, I was able to focus on goofiness and absurdity, making it super fun. I don't know if I will do anything else for this website, but I absolutely want to create something similar in the future. It's too entertaining and refreshing not to!

Here are some useful resources I used:

16.11.2024