The ICESTORM race was amazing!
We couldn't be prouder of the WREKD Drone Racing team's first event together.
Our pilots are among the best in the world, excelling in both speed and character. We strive to build a team of wholesome and caring pilots who are competitive yet compassionate, building up both their teammates and opponents and cheering for the success of all pilots regardless of their team. We want to foster and encourage this behavior, as this hobby is challenging enough, and we should treat our community with care and mindfulness.
That being said, each pilot did exceptionally well at this event, exceeding our expectations! For our first major event this season, we are in a position to be in the finals of all major events for the rest of the season.
We want to take a minute to review each pilot's accomplishments at this event.
Geordil (Dave Swartz)
Congratulations to Geordil (Dave Swartz) for his epic podium finish in the Open Class Next bracket! Dave qualified 19th in Open Class and managed to climb his way to Race 14, where he was up against GMAN, the_herder, and BonesE, taking 2nd place to earn a podium spot in the Open Class Next bracket. That placement earned him a bump-up spot in the Open Class Pro bracket, where he raced two smooth and consistent heats and finished 13th overall! Incredible.
Watch Geordil's Next Bracket Heats:
- Race 3 (Finished 3rd),
- Race 7 (Finished 2nd),
- Race 10 (Finished 1st),
- Race 13 (Finished 2nd),
- Race 14 (Finished 2nd)
Watch Geordil's Pro Bracket Heats:
Catapult FPV (James Buckler)
James is a first-year pilot starting off his career with a bang by qualifying 20th in Open Class, which gave him a prime spot to compete in the Open Class NEXT bracket. Right off the bat, in Race 1, he takes 1st place, setting him up for success to move on to his next challenge.
Moving on to Race 6, where he was up against a stacked heat featuring none other than GMAN, DIZZE, and TRAMOL, he kept his composure and was able to hold off DIZZE and TRAMOL, landing him in 2nd place for the race, keeping him alive to move on to Race 13. This race was a bit rougher, with a few bobbles that ended up knocking his video to static, placing him 19th overall in Open Class.
This is a pilot we definitely see progressing over this season and may just be one of the breakout pros of 2023!
Watch Catapult's Heats:
Screecher FPV (Spencer Cannizzaro)
Spencer hit the ground running this weekend with a 6th position in qualifying on Saturday, locking him into the top 8 in Open Class Pro brackets! This is a monumental achievement given the competition in the space and coming from 19th last year in the 2022 MultiGP Championships. We've seen tremendous progression in Screecher over this past year, and we're incredibly proud of him. He is easily set to be our top team pilot for the season to keep our team competitive with the dynasty forming at the top.
Moving from qualifying, Sunday he started off super strong in Race 1 by placing 2nd with an ice-cold, flawless, and smooth run against Hyper, Spicy, and Praze, which moved him on to Race 6, where he had an unfortunate touch of some gate material, causing him to get tangled up for the remainder of the race.
Moving on to Race 9, he was up against Leviathann (2nd in qualifying), Proximo (7th in qualifying), and Spicy (11th in qualifying).
The race started off super strong in the first lap with Screecher and Spicy neck and neck until the tunnel, where Spicy took a bit of a lead. Screecher caught back up to Spicy by lap number 2, but a slight bobble when he took a feature a bit too tight cost him some time. After the bobble, Screecher was able to catch back up to Spicy just as they crossed the finish line. Unfortunately, it was not enough, sending him off with 12th place overall in the Open Class Pro brackets.
An extraordinary placement, and we could not be prouder.
Watch Screecher's Heats:
Proximo (Colin Rountree)
Proximo started the weekend by qualifying 7th in Open Class. On race day, after a clean practice run, he started off strong in Race 2, finishing 1st after Leviathann grazed a flag, causing rainbow road from HDZero, allowing Proximo to lock in the 1st place finish ahead of JakeHammer by 2.5 seconds.
Moving on to Race 6 against Hyper, JakeHammer, and Screecher, things started off solid ahead of JakeHammer, but just before the 2nd lap, he seemed to get the announcer's curse as he bumped a gate, allowing Jake to take the lead. But a fast recovery from Proximo delivered a clean line to the finish line, leaving him in 3rd place for this heat.
Race 9 was the highlight race of the day for Proximo, showing his potential as he overtook Leviathann after lap 2 and held him off the entire lap and a half, gaining 2 seconds of time before crossing the finish line.
In Race 12, Pino went warp speed through Proximo before the holeshot, resulting in one of them hitting the timing system, knocking it offline.
After some careful consideration, the track directors decided to call the pilots in and have them rerun, which gave Proximo a lucky break as it wasn't technically a rule at this event, due to the holeshot rule only applying to the final 4 at this event.
So in the rerun of Race 12, it looks like we lost Levi immediately to an unfortunate desync, but moving on quickly as Noical leads Proximo by 1.7s into lap number 2. In lap number 2, Noical goes down, opening up an opportunity for Proximo, but just as Noical was getting back in the air, he unfortunately was in the path of Proximo, taking Proximo down just long enough for Noic to gain some ground.
But Proximo recovered quickly, keeping Pino from getting ahead on the final lap, but it wasn't enough. Noical was too far ahead and was able to finish up a few seconds ahead, giving Proximo the 2nd place spot.
But Proximo moved on and now entered Race 13, which ended quickly in a midair at the start of the race. It appears JakeHammer hooked arms with Proximo and tangled up, bringing them both down before the holeshot, leaving them to a tiebreaker for 5th place.
Watch Proximo's Heats: