I just got back from a great long weekend of racing at Insomnia61 (August 25-28) - The UK's Biggest Gaming Festival and what an event it was. We were situated in the PERFECT place for the public who attended Insomnia, with crowds 4+ deep at every race that happened it was great to see so many new people excited in a sport that is slowly maturing and gaining popularity with a genuinely interested crowd and hopefully some new pilots at future events too. Ben Jammin did an excellent job at race control all weekend with the help of many others to make what is one of the best racing events so far, by a long margin. We got so many packs in it was almost too much, as well as having some new cool formats for Team Racing, as well as a 4 race finals where points were earned just like in DRL to award consistency over luck of a single race.

So, first up the Solo Competition! During the initial qualifying rounds (12 in total, 6 counting), I took on a good standing sitting in 5th place. After qualifying the top 16 pilots went through where we faced more 'qualifying' rounds to knock us down to 12 pilots for the quarter finals, where I managed to bump up to 4th place with 3 good runs of the 5 rounds we ran. The quarter finals was where I drew on points with Chris Knight, but my other 2 rounds scored higher lap counts than his so I remained in 4th position despite it being very close, and it was obvious he was picking up speed to try and get into the top 4. Into the semi Finals we had a similar story of being insanely close, we both need to obtain a 15 lap round ideally, after both of us previously only hitting 14 to try and get through to the finals and bump each other out. Both of us on our 3rd round of 4 races managed to hit a 15 lapper under the pressure, leading us to draw on points again going into the finals (best 3 of 4 rounds). I had managed to hit 3 14 lappers and a 15, while Chris was sat on a 15, 2 14's and a 4 lapper (crashed out), meaning I had made it through to the finals! The 15 lapper was really my own confirmation of the work I'd been putting into racing again recently with lots of practice sessions and a lot of people had noticed that - I felt like I was back on form, and it's so relieving to be in that situation again. Into the finals and I was still slightly behind pace on Brett, Leo and Harry who had been hitting quite a few more 15 lap runs, with Brett even managing to obtain a 16 - so for me the final was all about just pushing, I knew I'd remain in 4th from a speed standpoint, and I didn't want to just scoop up remaining points if people crash out so I went balls to the wall every round with some awesome battles against Leo, but remained in 4th place at the end of the Finals - an awesome achievement and a great progression of speed throughout the 2 days, pulling that extra tap of speed out of the bag when it mattered the most, and in my opinion getting back on form from what have been some shaky results so far this year. I am super happy to come away with 4th place, I've never made it past quarter finals at the Nottingham venue due to collisions every time, so it was good to get past that and push through all the way.

Here's my 15 lapper from the semi-finals which I think was my pinnacle racing moment in the solo racing. Everything came together, and the Redbull stand was playing some damn good music to fly to (the song in this video in fact :) ), in a scenario of fight or flight, ironically flight was chosen, but fight was the real outcome!

A huge thanks to my continuing sponsors who support me throughout, it really helps in a place like this that's so tight and brutal when racing. These are HQProp, RunCam and Pulse Battery. Also it was the weekend of unveiling Final Rush, a new Drone Racing team I am part of and representing, but more on that when I post the Team Racing content... :)

Product reviews: http://matthew-evans.info
HQProp - http://hqprop.com
Runcam - http://runcam.com
Pulse - https://pulsebattery.com/
Team Final Rush - http://finalrush.co.uk/

Quad Specs:

Race Quad

TSX200
KoreKoncept Chroma LED Driver
Raceflight Revolt
TBS 24A
FrSky XM+ Receiver
T-Motor F-40 Pro 2400kv
RunCam Swift 2
FuriousFPV Stealth VTX
TBS Triumph Stubby Antenna
Pulse 1550mAh 95C Graphene
HQProp 5x4.5x3 v3