This November, we’re asking the automotive industry to grab a stopwatch, assemble a pit crew and get competitive – all in support of the next generation.
The AutoRaise Pitstop Challenge is a new industry-wide fundraising event with a very simple premise: how quickly can your team safely change a wheel?
Inspired by the teamwork and pressure of a motorsport pit stop, businesses across automotive are invited to host their own two-hour Pitstop event during November. Teams of two to four will race against the clock to safely jack a vehicle, remove a wheel, refit it and secure it correctly.
Your fastest time then goes onto the AutoRaise leaderboard, where you’ll discover how you measure up against teams from across the industry.
And yes, there will be bragging rights.
A challenge the whole industry can take part in
We wanted Pitstop to be something that works just as well for a bodyshop as it does for an insurer, supplier, repair network or other automotive business.
You certainly don’t need a workshop full of technicians to get involved. In fact, watching a team of office-based colleagues discover quite how much skill is involved in changing a wheel could be half the entertainment.
Businesses can enter multiple teams too, so there is plenty of scope for some healthy internal rivalry. Management versus apprentices? Workshop versus front of house? One branch against another?
The leaderboard will take that competition beyond individual workplaces, allowing teams to compare their performance with others across the automotive industry.
There’s a bigger reason for doing it
The competition makes Pitstop fun. The fundraising is what makes it matter.
Every experienced technician in our industry started somewhere. Before the qualifications, knowledge and years of experience, there was a young person who needed somebody to give them their first opportunity.
AutoRaise exists to help create more of those opportunities.
We work with young people, employers, education providers and the wider automotive industry to help more young people build rewarding careers in vehicle repair and to support employers in creating the apprenticeship opportunities that make those careers possible.
Each organisation taking part in Pitstop is being challenged to raise at least £500 for AutoRaise.
One team raising £500 matters. Get the industry doing it together and the possibilities become much more exciting.
50 organisations could raise £25,000.
100 could raise £50,000.
200 could raise £100,000.
That is the potential behind Pitstop: a relatively small commitment from individual businesses becoming significant collective support for the next generation.
Two hours. £500. Make it your own.
We’ve deliberately kept the event flexible.
Choose a date during November, gather your teams and build your fundraising around the Pitstop Challenge. You could add a bake sale, raffle, coffee morning, prizes or your own workplace fundraising ideas.
AutoRaise will provide a fundraising pack containing guidance, posters, social media materials and event instructions, so getting involved shouldn’t become another enormous job on somebody’s to-do list.
And once you’ve set your time, don’t keep quiet about it.
Share it. Challenge your customers. Call out your suppliers. Tag another bodyshop. Invite another branch to beat you.
We want to see the competition travel across the industry throughout November.
Ten years of AutoRaise – and the next generation
There’s another reason November matters to us.
2026 marks AutoRaise’s 10th anniversary.
Over the past decade, the automotive industry has changed enormously, and so have the skills needed by the people working within it. Our anniversary gives us an opportunity to celebrate what has already been achieved while keeping our attention firmly on what comes next.
The technicians, managers and business leaders our industry will rely upon in another ten years need somewhere to begin today.
So we can think of few better ways to mark our anniversary than by getting the automotive community together, having some fun and helping to create those first opportunities.
Ready to take on the clock?
Get your team together. Choose your November date. Start fundraising.
Then there’s just one question:
How fast can you do it?
Register here for the AutoRaise Pitstop Challenge and get your fundraising pack: resources.autoraise.co.uk/pitstop-challenge
