After a camera swap and a hefty throttle curve, the SKEW_R instantly became my fave race quad. So much in fact, that I decided to build a backup for a race the following Sunday - this was on Monday night.

So, orders all placed, just needed to cut a frame, print a pod, and hope everything showed up on time. Ended up being a busy week, so I had to do the whole build on the Friday night. Duplicate of the first so it went smoothly, whole thing done in about 4 hours. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to test hover it. In fact, I didn't even try arming it. It was a backup anyway, plan was to fly the first, fix it if I broke anything, and not fly the pretty new quad unless absolutely 100% necessary. I like to kid myself like that.

Fast forward to Sunday, racing is going well, SKEW_R number 1 is holding up great. Penultimate qualifying round, I'm sitting just inside the top 5 and scraping into the A final, I clip a gate and shatter my front prop. Camera is jello city, so I opt to land after 2 laps rather than risk the quad shaking itself to pieces or worse. This puts me in last place for that heat, and a back of the grid start for the last round of qualifying. I swap props, and check the livetime results.

Turns out a couple of the other pilots put in blistering heats, and I'm now down in the B final unless I pull off a bonkers quick last run. Walk out, put my quad on the block, and test arm as always, and it immediately spins up and flips. Put a wrong hand prop on, upside down. Run back to the pits - no time to dig through the big bag of props, I grab the rainbow backup quad and sprint back to the track.

This quad has never flown, never test hovered, never even been armed. And now I need to fly faster than I've flown all day, cutting my average laps from about 33 seconds to 30, from the back of the grid, the most glorious maiden flight I've ever done. Game on.

Well...B final isn't too bad a result at the end of the day.