Van loaded and Cerb caffeinated, we arrive a little later than planned but we are set up in plenty of time. The Hann and JDog arrive just as I’m putting the finishing touches to the track.
This is the race that Birmingham Tiny Whoopers & Killakwads are hosting where pilots can score points in the first ever official Tiny Whoop UK League. Unlike our fortnightly meetups, this is run as a fully structured race event where we managed 10 qualifying heats, followed by triple finals for all.
With 11 pilots, taking part it was a good group but not so many to be manic or pressuring. Perfect because I rarely compete so this was a nice low pressure environment. At I Do from Norfolk was also here for her first ever race so it was nice to enjoy a pretty chill event. I’d deliberately kept the organisation minimal and people turned up, got on the right channel and started flying with very little agro.
All apart from Lightsail, who turned up about an hour late and then didn’t have a working whoop so lost 5 of 10 qualifying rounds to faffery. Eventually he got himself organised and flying, slotting himself neatly into the A finals group – he’s just so quick even turning up late he qualifies fast!
It was clear that the A main was going to be nuts. The venue is a decent sized pub function room. I filled it with gates trying to create an interesting course without crossing lines too many times. In the end I was very happy with the track. But these lads were lapping 12 gates in under 10 seconds! Best I managed all day was a 14 second lap, which put me mid table.
Going into the finals there was some really great racing. I had spent the day trying really hard to be consistent and not fast. On any of my batteries I could have pushed harder to go faster but from practice sessions I lose consistency and crash. And it was important now in the finals that I just didn’t crash. I would lose more time crashing than I could make up going fast. So I tried to pop off the line quickly and then take a steady approach and let everyone else crash around me.
In our finals group people had to change video channel. This caused a lot of problems as these whoops do not hold their video channels perfectly. There was a lot of distortion going on which meant we had to rerun the first race several times to try and find out what the problem was. In the end, RC maniac spotted a channel change possibility and it made all the difference. Now we had clear video and I had no excuses but to fly my best.
My plan worked perfectly for 2 out of the 3 races. I just pootled around making sure I hit the center of each gate. The Hann has gotten noticeably quicker since last time I flew with him and he was chasing me down. But several times he would overtake me and then crash. But on my third battery I had some real bad luck. I think the nerves had got me and I crashed at the first gate. I got spun around and ended up trapped behind the lap timer under the metal cowl. Try as I might I could not escape and I just had to sit there and watch other whoops zip by. After two first place finishes this crash cost me the win, but such is racing.
Our B Main finals over, it was time for A Main finals and these guys were ridiculously quick. The racing was a real education in what whoops can do these days. These boys keep their whoops at 100% throttle as much as possible for the whole lap. Heavily banking into corners at full throttle to change direction as quickly as possible they were all prop to prop for every race. In the last race there were a couple mid-airs and the tension was building. This created some pretty heavy collisions with the wall as they were pushing hard to take the top slot.
I tried to get some photos but when a race is over in under 30 seconds it’s very tricky. Also, these guys are committed to the most absolute lightweight whoop available. In the TW UK rules I had wanted to make LEDs mandatory but for the first year it was more important to include everyone. Mandating LEDs meant that people could not show up with a bind and fly and take part which could limit participation. But if they had been wearing LEDs I would have got much better photos of their flight lines.
At the end of the day we had our results.
- DANBUSTER
- MINUS_ONE
- (CIRCLES)
- LIGHTSAIL
- J DOG
- MINIROLLSRULE
- THE HANN FPV
- NORFOLK N GOOD
- JIPPYHESUS
- RCMANIAC98
- AT I DO
By this time it wasn’t too late in the day so people had some time just freestyling and burning thru the last of their packs. We also did an endurance challenge. Basically everyone takes off at the same time and flies line if sight, i think in total we had about 8 whoops in the air briefly. Then you do what you can to be the last whoop flying. Some just stayed away from others, some tried to be bumper cars and knock others out of the sky, and some just did some more freestyle. But if you crashed or touched the walls or floor, you were out.
I had quite bright LEDs on my whoops butt, so I flew right in front of other pilots trying to be distracting and blinding them. I was remarkably effective till I came up against JippyHesus who was immune so I had to try and knock him out of the air. It turns out this is really difficult! I ended up chasing him around hoping for one good hit and after a few minutes and likely some battery damage, I got lucky and tipped his wing sending him careering into a wall! Great fun!
Packing down for me was more or less the same as a regular whoop meet. But the amount of stuff Cerb brings took a bit of karting around. He was using this race as a bit of a testing ground for some of the live streaming things for BIRD and it helped him catch something broken. It was worth all the lugging for that. The hardest thing to pack up was the rope light that RCManiac98 brought with him. This looks incredible but it’s a full on ballache to wrap up and put away. But without these two lads help the event wouldn’t have been nearly as successful or as much fun, so I’m very grateful.
Now my clubs League event is done, I’m looking forward to going to others events for a change and seeing how I do!
