Six rounds.
Three clubs.
One table.
SGDC, DROX and WARE FPV have pooled their race nights into a single south-England championship. Fly a 65mm or 75mm whoop, count your best 4 rounds out of 6, and see your name on the same table as everyone else in the south.
- Rounds run
- 3/ 6
- Pilots scoring
- 24
- Host clubs
- 3
- Fastest lap
- 19.30s
- Next round
- 16 Jan
A championship
that spans three halls
A tiny whoop is a palm-sized quadcopter with ducted propellers, flown first-person through goggles. It weighs about as much as a golf ball, it is safe to fly indoors around people, and it is the cheapest way into drone racing that exists. The South England Whoop Series takes six of those indoor race nights — two at each of three clubs — and scores them as one season.
Six rounds, three hosts
SGDC, DROX and WARE FPV each host two rounds. Every round is a full race day: practice, timed qualifying, then knockout brackets on an LED gate course inside a sports hall.
Best 4 of 6 count
Nobody can make every date. Only your best 4 results count toward the title, so a missed round or a bad day does not end your season. Attend at least 4 to be classified.
Two classes
65mm and 75mm whoops score in the same table but are ranked separately too. Both are 1S or 2S brushless, both fit through a 24″ gate, and both cost less than a set of car tyres.
This series is
for anyone
You do not need a club membership, a licence, a fast quad or any racing experience. Every round runs a rookie heat, and there is always a spare whoop and someone standing behind you for your first laps. Turning up is the hard part; everything after it is easier than it looks.
Never flown? Come and watch, then borrow one
Message any of the three clubs and say you are new. Come to a round as a spectator, get a set of goggles on your head between heats, and fly a club whoop down the straight. That costs you nothing.
Practising on a simulator at home for a few evenings before your first race is the single highest-value thing you can do. A cheap controller plugged into a laptop is enough.
Already fly? Enter the next round
Bring a 65mm or 75mm whoop, at least six charged batteries, your goggles and a spare set of props. Entries open through the hosting club. You will be flying in heats of four within an hour of walking in.
Your points carry across all three clubs automatically — you do not need to join anything to appear in the table.
Pilots under 18 and families
Whoops are light, ducted and slow enough to fly around people, which is why some of the fastest pilots in the country are eleven. Under-18s race the same heats with a parent or guardian present.
Want to run a round?
Clubs outside the founding three can host a series round if the venue and format meet the requirements below — starting with a 24″ minimum gate. Read the host rules, then get in touch.
Host requirementsThe table
Live after every round. Points come from finishing position; the best 4 of 6 rounds count, and anything beyond that is shown struck through so you can see exactly what is being dropped.
Placeholder data — every pilot, result and lap time below is invented for testing
| Pos | Pilot | R1 | R2 | R3 | R4 | R5 | R6 | Gap | Rnds | Wins | Best lap | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | NIGHTSHIFT WAREC. Beaumont75mm | 52 | 63 | 100 | – | – | – | LEADER | 3 | 1 | 20.25s | 215 |
| 2 | HALFGATE DROXR. Whitmore65mm | 100 | 70 | 26 | – | – | – | −19 | 3 | 1 | 20.06s | 196 |
| 3 | ROTORHEAD WAREN. Petrov75mm | 63 | 52 | 70 | – | – | – | −30 | 3 | 0 | 20.66s | 185 |
| 4 | PROPWASH WAREJ. Kelly65mm | 29 | 100 | 47 | – | – | – | −39 | 3 | 1 | 20.38s | 176 |
| 5 | DEADCAT SGDCL. Fairbairn65mm | 78 | 29 | 63 | – | – | – | −45 | 3 | 0 | 19.97s | 170 |
| 6 | MICROCLIMB SGDCS. Aldridge65mm | 88 | 35 | 32 | – | – | – | −60 | 3 | 0 | 19.60s | 155 |
| 7 | SIDESTEP SGDCQ. Bello65mm | 57 | 47 | 39 | – | – | – | −72 | 3 | 0 | 21.71s | 143 |
| 8 | VOLTLINE WAREA. Okafor65mm | 47 | – | 88 | – | – | – | −80 | 2 * | 0 | 20.09s | 135 |
| 9 | TINSEL SGDCM. Duarte75mm | – | 88 | 43 | – | – | – | −84 | 2 * | 0 | 19.30s | 131 |
| 10 | CANOPY SGDCT. Ibrahim65mm | – | 78 | 52 | – | – | – | −85 | 2 * | 0 | 20.00s | 130 |
| 11 | SPLITS DROXH. Larsen65mm | 35 | – | 78 | – | – | – | −102 | 2 * | 0 | 20.35s | 113 |
| 12 | GLITCHY SGDCF. Novak65mmRookie | 39 | 43 | 29 | – | – | – | −104 | 3 | 0 | 22.78s | 111 |
| 13 | SNAPROLL SGDCK. Osborne75mm | 70 | 26 | – | – | – | – | −119 | 2 * | 0 | 21.46s | 96 |
| 14 | PIPCLEAN DROXG. Osei65mm | 17 | 23 | 35 | – | – | – | −140 | 3 | 0 | 23.09s | 75 |
| 15 | CROSSWIND WAREY. Sato75mm | 1 | 57 | 14 | – | – | – | −143 | 3 | 0 | 21.25s | 72 |
| 16 | PACKFULL SGDCW. Adeyemi65mm | 26 | 20 | 23 | – | – | – | −146 | 3 | 0 | 25.33s | 69 |
| 17 | BLUEBOTTLE DROXO. Tremaine65mm | 43 | 17 | – | – | – | – | −155 | 2 * | 0 | 23.76s | 60 |
| 18 | LOWRAIL WAREP. Achebe65mm | 11 | 32 | 17 | – | – | – | −155 | 3 | 0 | 24.46s | 60 |
| 19 | BRIDGET DROXB. Nsofor75mm | – | – | 57 | – | – | – | −158 | 1 * | 0 | 21.68s | 57 |
| 20 | SUGARCUBE DROXE. Mbeki75mmRookie | 32 | 14 | 11 | – | – | – | −158 | 3 | 0 | 24.08s | 57 |
| 21 | HEATSINK DROXV. Chandra65mm | 14 | 39 | – | – | – | – | −162 | 2 * | 0 | 23.29s | 53 |
| 22 | TWOCELL WARED. Ruiz75mm | 20 | – | 20 | – | – | – | −175 | 2 * | 0 | 25.57s | 40 |
| 23 | SLOWMO WAREI. Haugen65mmRookie | 23 | – | – | – | – | – | −192 | 1 * | 0 | 25.40s | 23 |
| 24 | TAPEOUT DROXZ. Marchetti65mmRookie | 8 | – | – | – | – | – | −207 | 1 * | 0 | 27.12s | 8 |
Six dates,
one season
Next roundRound 4 · Lights Out
Hosted by WARE FPV · Ware, Hertfordshire · doors 09:00, first race 10:30
Round 1 · Season Opener
Round 2 · Oxford Indoor
Round 3 · Winter Tight
Round 4 · Lights Out
Round 5 · Oxford Spring
Round 6 · Season Finals
Three clubs,
three characters
Each club keeps its own night, its own hall and its own way of running a course. The series is the thing they share.
SGDC run the tightest technical courses in the series. Their hall favours late braking and low gates, and their race nights have a reputation for being the friendliest place in the south to fly your very first heat.
First time here? Turn up with nothing and they will still find you a spare whoop, a set of goggles and someone to stand behind you for your first three laps.
Oxford's drone racing club runs both outdoor open-class racing and indoor whoop nights. DROX rounds tend to be fast and flowing — wide gates, long straights and a course that rewards a pilot who can hold throttle through a dive.
First time here? DROX run a beginner heat at every round. No licence, no club membership and no racing experience needed to enter it.
WARE FPV run a full sports hall with LED gates, a live timing rig and a race director on the mic. Affiliated with Drone Sport UK, they bring the most broadcast-shaped race day of the three: staged heats, called finals and results on the screen before you have taken your goggles off.
First time here? Their taster sessions put a whoop in your hands for the evening. If you like it, you enter the next round as a rookie.
Race format
& host rules
Two sets of rules: how a race day runs, and what a club has to provide before it can host a series round. Anything marked provisional has not been ratified by all three clubs yet.
Non-negotiable. Every gate on a series course must be at least 24 inches (610mm) square through the opening. Tighter gates turn a race into a crash tally and punish the newer pilots the series exists to bring in. A course with a single undersized gate is not a series course.
Event format
- F01Practice, then qualifying, then brackets. Open practice on arrival, three timed qualifying rounds, then double-elimination brackets seeded by qualifying.
- F02Four pilots per heat. Heats run 4-up on separate video channels. Race length is a fixed lap count set by the race director on the day.
- F03Rookie heat. Every round runs at least one heat for pilots at their first ever race. Rookie results still score series points.
- F04Classes. 65mm and 75mm whoops, 1S or 2S. Both classes score into the same championship table and are also ranked separately.
- F05Points. Championship points by finishing position, 100 for a win down the field. Your best 4 of 6 rounds count.
- F06Classification. Attend at least 4 rounds to be classified in the final championship. Provisional — not yet ratified.
Pilot rules
- P01Ducted props only. Whoop-style ducts or prop guards on every aircraft. No open props indoors, no exceptions.
- P02Your assigned channel only. Do not power a video transmitter outside your heat or off your assigned channel. This is the one rule that reliably ruins someone else's race.
- P03Failsafe set and tested. Motors must stop on signal loss. Checked at scrutineering before you qualify.
- P04Battery discipline. Charge in a bag or a case, never unattended, never on the race floor. Puffed packs go in the bucket.
- P05Marshal when asked. Everyone marshals somebody else's heat. Miss your marshal call and your next result is void.
- P06Race director decides. On-the-day calls on restarts, cut gates, and contact are final. Protests go in before the next heat starts.
Hosting a round
- H01Gates at least 24″ square. Measured through the opening. Lit gates strongly preferred.
- H02Indoor hall with a hard floor. Sports hall, community hall or similar. Netting or a walled-off pilot area separating the field from spectators.
- H03Timing system with published results. Any transponder-free or transponder timing rig, as long as the round's results can be exported and submitted to the series within 48 hours.
- H04Minimum 8 gates, minimum 45m lap. Enough course that qualifying separates the field.
- H05A rookie heat and a spare whoop. Non-negotiable: a series round has to be enterable by someone who has never raced.
- H06Insurance, first aid, and a named race director. Club insurance covering the venue, a first aider on site, and one person whose call is final.
Kit & scrutineering
- K0165mm class. Up to 65mm motor-to-motor diagonal, 31mm ducted props, 1S or 2S. The tight-course class.
- K0275mm class. Up to 75mm diagonal, 40mm ducted props, 1S or 2S. More thrust, more speed, wants a flowing course.
- K03Video power capped. 25mW analogue or equivalent digital. Anything higher blows out the pilot next to you indoors.
- K04Two aircraft recommended. One spare, built and bound before you arrive. Nobody wants to watch you solder between heats.
- K05Six packs minimum. A race day is more flying than a club night. Bring more batteries than you think.
Slots open
for the season
Six race days, three halls, a field of pilots who buy props, batteries and radios by the box. Sponsorship keeps entry fees low enough that anyone can turn up and fly.
No sponsors are confirmed — every slot below is a placeholder
The headline partnership. Season naming rights across all six rounds, gate branding in three halls, and top billing on every results sheet the series publishes. One slot, currently unclaimed.
Take one round at one club for the day. Banner at the track, callouts on the mic between heats, and your logo on that round's results. Six rounds, available separately.
All six rounds across all three clubs, at every venue, on every results sheet. The same reach as the headline slot without the naming rights.
Props, batteries, spares and podium prizes. The lowest-cost way onto the podium photo, and the thing pilots actually remember at the end of a season.
Rookie-heat prizes go to pilots at their first ever race — the moment someone decides they are doing this again. A memorable place to put a logo.
A table at all six rounds. Pilots break props all day and buy them on the spot — the shortest distance there is between a stand and a sale.
Help cover hall hire so entry fees stay low enough that anyone can turn up and race. This is the one that keeps the series open to everybody.