so i entered a local multigp chapter race for the first time. ive been flying for about a year, mostly freestyle but ive been doing laps in the backyard for the past 3 months trying to get consistent. im running a 5inch on a dead cat frame with a 45 degree gopro mount which i know is probably not ideal for racing but its what i have. tuned on betaflight 4.4 and rates feel good to me at home but i honestly have no idea how theyll feel under pressure at an actual event.

main thing im worried about is just completely falling apart mentally. ive seen videos where people who fly fine at home just go to pieces in a race environment. is there anything you do to kind of settle yourself down before heats? and should i bother changing anything on my setup this close to the event or just leave it alone at this point

also not sure about the etiquette around crashing into other peoples gates ? like do you help reset or just land and wait

do not touch your rates or tune right now. seriously. one week out is not the time to discover a new oscillation or realize your stick feel is off. fly what you know. the dead cat frame thing doesn't matter as much as people on youtube make it sound, especially at a local race where half the field is probably on whatever they had lying around too.

for the mental side ? this sounds dumb but just set a goal that isnt about placing. like your goal for heat 1 is just to finish every lap without crashing, thats it. once you take the pressure of competing off yourself for one heat you usually settle down. ive seen guys show up to their first race and finish top 5 just because they were calm and consistent while faster pilots binned it.

gate etiquette varies by event but generally if you crash into a gate you land, wait for a marshal or you can help reset if the race director says its ok. dont touch anything while other people are still flying though, that should be obvious but yeah

i was in the exact same spot like 6 months ago lol. what helped me was just accepting i was gonna be slow and not caring about it. ended up having a blast and the community at local races is usually pretty chill. people remember being new.

one actual tip ? bring way more batteries than you think you need and make sure theyre all charged the night before not the morning of. i showed up with half my packs at storage because i forgot to charge overnight and it was a whole thing