Written by Toby
If you're a drone racer then I don't need to tell you what the MultiGP Championships are. If you aren't a drone racer, then let me explain.
The MultiGP organization is run with racers in mind. This means that they focus on providing a high-quality race that is tailored for fierce competition and hardcore racing! Among the racing community, MultiGP has earned the most respect of any of the wanna-be organizations due to the well thought out structure of their events, the rigor of their planning, and the execution of their vision. The Drone Nationals organizers (DSA) could really learn a thing or two from these guys after their widely publicized failure of an event in New York a few weeks earlier. Let's hope they were in attendance.
Back to the event.
The event was held over the Labor Day weekend in Muncie Indiana at the AMA Headquarters. This was extremely symbolic in that the AMA showed the community that it is on board and ready to support drone racing. Pilots had the opportunity to qualify via a range of different avenues. These included:
- Placing first in a MultiGP Regional Qualifier
- Be one of the 16 runners up in the 2015 MultiGP Championship
- Be one of the 60 runners up in the Statewide MultiGP Regional Championship Series
- Log a fast UTT (Youtube time trial) time to be able to complete the day prior and gain entry to the event.
All of the requirements for entry were available months before the event so that racers could plan, organize, and strategize as to how they might be able to compete on the day. Full details are here http://www.multigp.com/page/2016-MultiGP-Drone-Racing-Championship. 
The best racers were all in attendance including Braindrain, JET, Nytfury, A_Nub, Bapu, Willard_FPV, and MAD_AIR. The competition was fierce, friendly, and fast! Friends were pitted against friends, room-mates against room-mates, and Nationals Champions against would-be Nationals Champions. However, after two days of racing and with 52 pilots competing the event needed to get to its business end by whittling the racers down to the top 16. See the list on the side. With the top 16 pilots picked and ready to race it, the final afternoon was set for some action and the event didn't disappoint. There were thrills and spills, problems with take-offs, and gates were hit but at the end of the day (as Highlander says) there can be only ONE. With the day's racing times having been dominated by Shaun Taylor AKA Nytfury from Team Multistar, the final was a mere formality with Nytfury cruising to victory. This makes Nytfury the only person to have won back-to-back MultiGP Championships. On a side note, Nytfury didn't qualify for the Drone Worlds in spite of being the in-form drone racer for the past two years. His qualification was based on his performance at the US Drone Nationals where he crashed out. The US Nationals hadn't ironed out their rules which wouldn't allow Nytfury another channel to qualify (as most organizations do) so, unfortunately, he won't be competing in the individual race event at the Worlds. Let's hope the Worlds organizers (DSA) grant him a wild-card as it would be a shame not to have such a wonderful competitor compete and would genuinely cast a shadow over the validity of any eventual winner.
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