okay so i've been flying freestyle for about a year and a half and this weekend i'm actually entering a proper race for the first time. local club event, nothing huge, but i'm kind of nervous about it. my setup is a diatone roma f5 with a 45a stack, running betaflight 4.4 with rates i tuned myself over a few months. goggles are box goggles which i know everyone's gonna clown on but it's what i have.

i've watched a lot of race footage and i understand the theory ? carry corner speed, hit the apex, dont sacrifice exit speed for entry aggression, all that. but actually doing it in a race with other quads around me is gonna be different. anything specific i should be thinking about going in as a total first timer competition wise, not just flying wise

dont worry about winning, seriously. your first few races just focus on completing laps cleanly. i see so many new guys push way too hard trying to keep up and they end up crashing out on lap one every single heat. a clean slow lap beats a fast crash every time for your confidence and your quad.

also get there early and walk the track before anything. like actually walk it on foot and visualize your lines. sounds dumb but it makes a big difference especially when you're nervous and flying on adrenaline. your brain will thank you when you're in the air and suddenly the gates make sense spatially.

oh and tape your battery leads. i know you probably know this but race days are chaotic and ive seen people forget basic stuff when they're stressed

box goggles are fine man dont even stress it, half the people there probably started on worse. the latency difference in a local club race isnt gonna be what loses you laps, throttle management and not panicking when someone's right on your tail will be way more important.

one thing that caught me off guard at my first race was the marshal rules and impound procedures ? like every club does it slightly different and if you dont know to check in your quad after each heat you can get disqualified. worth just asking the organizer before it starts how they run things so you're not the clueless guy scrambling around between heats