XBLADES COME OUT SWINGING TO WIN RACE 1 IN LAAX


As the battle for the DCL championship resumes, XBlades and Raiden Racing are still slugging it out at the top of the leaderboard, finishing one-two in Saturday’s action. China Dragons stunned Quad Force One for third.

After a three-month break, DCL 2.0 kicked off with Day 1 of a double-header in the DCL Virtual Drone Grand Prix Laax. And for the third time in as many races, the Final came down to a showdown between XBlades Racing of the UK and Raiden Racing of Japan.

 

The teams had come into Laax tied in the points at the top of the leaderboard, and with the race marking the halfway point of the season, tension was high. The Final was one of the most exciting in DCL history, with heats won by as little as 7/100ths of a second, but when it all came down to the deciding Big Heat, XBlades claimed the important win for a Grand Final score of 18:12, giving them a slim 50-point advantage in the overall standings.

XBlades pilot Ashton Gamble said, “Raiden has really stepped their game up this year, and they are our number-one rival now. We’ve got to work harder than ever this year to beat them.”

His teammate MinChan Kim added, “I guess this was the closest DCL race I’ve ever done, and it was super hard, too, so I cannot wait for tomorrow’s race!”

China Dragons made it into the Final rounds for the first time this season. Facing off with the USA’s Quad Force One in the Small Final, the Chinese team was behind going into the Big Heat. But there, the Dragons’ pilots crushed the Americans, sweeping the heat’s top four positions for their race placement of third.

China Dragons pilot Thomas Kund said, “We couldn’t have dreamed it any better. Beating Quad Force One in the Big Heat was absolutely amazing. We’re for sure going to send it one more time tomorrow.”

In the DCL Women’s Cup, the work ethic of Raiden’s Evan Desautels, who has logged over 2,100 hours of simulator training, of which lots on on DCL – The Game, paid off as she won her third race of the season. Evan swept all four Women’s Cup Solo Heats, though not without challenges from pilots like Luisa Rizzo of XBlades and Leslie Camarena of Spain’s SDT Euroflytech, who finished second and third.

“I’m still trying to take it in, the adrenaline after these events is really intense,” said Evan. Looking ahead to Sunday, she added, “I’m really scared of LeoOnFire [Luisa] – I feel like I’ve just awoken a dragon. Tomorrow is going to be very, very interesting!”

The frozen terrain of Laax was the site of real-life DCL racing in 2019, but this year’s Halloween weekend marks the first-ever virtual races at the legendary Alpine snowpark.

Out of four new tracks created especially for the event, two were introduced in Race 1:  Sunset Session is all about reaching top speeds amid multiple tunnels and a snow castle. Meanwhile, Snowblind is the most technical of the two tracks, seeing the drones speed inside of one Europe’s largest halfpipes and scaling DCL’s biggest-ever vertical climb.

 

As usual this season, it was the viewers who chose the tracks for the Finals by voting on Twitch. The Grand Final was held on Sunset Session and the Small Final on Snowblind.

The day’s track records went to XBlades’ MinChan Kim for Sunset Session and Snowblind and Raiden’s Evan Desautels claiming both track records in the Women’s Cup.

In the weeks to come, all four new Laax tracks will be added to play in DCL – The Game, so everyone can test their time against the record-holders. Stay tuned to DCL social channels for updates. For more information on DCL – The Game: aero/game/features/

DCL 2.0 continues a favourite feature: giveaways! During Saturday’s showdown in Laax, fans entered keywords in the Twitch chat to win Torvol backpacks and DCL – The Game for Steam, and more giveaways will be on offer during Sunday’s race.

Also, look for a post-race special featuring star pilots when the next episode of DCL’s talk show series “What the Kwad?!” streams live on Twitch.

 

But first: The action continues with 2nd Race in Laax. The teams will start fresh, and two entirely new tracks could change everything. Catch all the action live globally on Twitch, starting at 11:00 am UTC on Sunday, 31 October. (Heads up to race fans in the UK and EU: The autumn time change means that Sunday’s race will start one hour earlier than on Saturday.)

Full race results and overall standings after Day 1 of the Virtual Drone Grand Prix Laax, Switzerland

World Championship: https://dcl.aero/race/virtual-drone-grand-prix-laax-switzerland/

Women’s Cup:  https://dcl.aero/race/virtual-drone-grand-prix-laax-switzerland-cup/

 

Keep up with DCL all season long: Follow @dronechampionsleague on social and stay on top of the news here on www.dcl.aero.

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