2023 Mega FPV Edit | Drone Racing & 3rd at Australian Nationals Freestyle

This videos much longer than what I usually post, but it wouldn't be possible to tell the story of last year with something shorter. I probably got to fly more last year (around 500 batteries total) than the three years previous to 2023 combined, and made huge progress with my flying.
Something really clicked for me with racing at the club level as I managed to win every CMRC race of the 2023 season except for race 2, where I had issues with midairs in finals. It was a pretty sudden change from previous years, so maybe something similar will happen for me at bigger events.
At the first big event of the year at the Australian International Airshow (previously Avalon) race, I managed to keep second place for a lot of the time in qualifying, but things fell apart for me on the final day. The usual equipment failures mixed with midairs meant I finished 5th overall. After this, I upgraded my setup. I swapped out my motors for the MCK motors for the higher heat resistance. I upgraded the stack, swapping the hobbywing ESC 40a for the foxeer reaper slim, and the flight controller for the foxeer h7, mainly for the higher voltage rating and multiple 5v rails for some extra redundancy. I also switched to the kronos frame for some extra performance.
I instantly saw massive improvement in practise with the new setup. The kronos while not a sendstorm, exceeded my expectations in terms of durability. The B-line Bolt was made in response to this, and if I was to build new quads today, I'd probably choose the bolt, as I'm still uncomfortable about how exposed the stacks on the kronos are. The bolt and kronos have their pros and cons in flight performance and the kronos does better on tighter elements, while it's easier to fly the bolt smoothly on longer tracks. For now though, I'm flying the kronos builds in competitions as I don't really trust the old electronics in my bolts taken from the sendstorms.
I qualified 7th for nationals in racing. I didn't really mind too much where I placed at the time because I didn't see any benefit in flying the track too much, but I later found out that it had been used to determine who got to be on the Australian FAI team and that I had narrowly missed out on a spot. Nationals I didn't do so well at. Before hand I had an insane workload in school with exams following the week after, and I got sick when I arrived in Townsville. As a result, I flew far from my best before being taken out by midairs in the quarter finals. In the freestyle competition though, despite not really having time to fly much freestyle in 2023, I managed to finish third overall.
I'm looking forward to seeing what I can do in 2024.

[@_BEARFPV_]

Amazing edit mate! Really showcases the progress you made in 2023 and I look forward to seeing more Davey Domination in 2024!!

[@DaveyFPV]

Thanks! I'm excited for the race next weekend. It'll be interesting to see how I do against Thomas with a home advantage.

[@CaptainCrowFPV]

Nice flying dude 😎I love that Huge tent track OMG

[@DaveyFPV]

Thanks! The tent track was at the Avalon airshow last year. The airshow races are some of the best racing events in Australia now and it's really cool having so many people from the general public spectating and learning about FPV.

[@wubbzfpv]

Long awaited edit!! Awesome to see some of Ur speedy flying 🔥🔥

[@DaveyFPV]

Thanks! Looking forward to racing with you again.

[@kardady]

Davey! You’re faster and faster! Keep having fun, my man 👍😍🤘🚀

[@DaveyFPV]

Thanks! Will do!