Running an Event

This page walks through a whole race day: make an event, set it up, run the heats, and finish with results.

If you haven't started GridFPV yet, do Getting Started first and add a Mock timer so you can follow along with no hardware.

How the event workspace is laid out

When you open an event you get a list of stages down the left side:

Classes & Roster → Rounds & Heats → Race Control → Marshaling → Results

Two more sit below them and you visit those when you need to:

• Timers — which timers this event uses, and its channel layouts.
• Audit — the history of every decision made during the event.
• Overlays — pages you put over your video in OBS. See Overlays.

You normally work through the stages in order, but you can go back to any of them at any time. There is no separate "edit mode" — setting up the event is just visiting the early stages.

Almost everything saves by itself as you change it. There is no Save button to forget. You can close the event and come back later.

Make an event

1. On the home screen, open Events.
2. Make a new event and name it, like Tuesday Club Night.
3. Open it. The setup wizard offers to walk you through the basics.

The setup wizard

The wizard is a quick guided pass that gets a normal event ready in a few clicks. It covers the same ground as the first few stages, in this order:

Timer & channels → Classes & Roster → First round → Review

Everything saves as you go. Use Next and Back to move around, Skip to jump past a step you don't need, and Finish setup at the end.

Step 1 — Timer & channels

Choose the timer this event uses, and check its channels and node count.

You need at least one timer

Next stays greyed out until you pick a timer. The timer decides how many pilots can fly at once and which channels they can use.

If you haven't set one up yet, use the built-in Mock timer — see Connecting a Timer.

RotorHazard needs the GridFPV plugin

You can only pick a RotorHazard timer once GridFPV has connected to it and found the GridFPV plugin running on it.

If you can't tick it, the row tells you why and what to do. See Install the GridFPV plugin.

If you pick more than one timer, mark one as the Primary. That one feeds the race and supplies the channel list. The others are backups.

Step 2 — Classes & Roster

Pick the classes this event runs, mark who showed up, and put pilots into classes with their channel. This is the same work as the Classes & Roster stage — the wizard just does it earlier.

Step 3 — First round

Set up one round so you can make heats. Choose a format and a win condition (see Round Formats). One round is enough to start. Add more later.

Step 4 — Review

A short checklist: do you have a class, a pilot, a timer and a round? None of it blocks you — it's just a "ready to race?" summary. Click Finish setup.

TIP

Everything the wizard does can be changed later from the stage pages. Skip it if you'd rather set things up yourself.

Timers & channel layouts

The workspace's Timers page does two jobs.

Pick this event's timers

Tick the timers this event uses and mark one Primary. That one feeds the race and supplies the channel list. The rest are backups.

A RotorHazard timer can only be ticked once it has connected and its GridFPV plugin has answered. If it can't be ticked, the row says why. See Connecting a Timer.

Each connected timer also has a Tune button that opens gate tuning and brings you back here when you're done. That matters mid-event, when a gate is dropping laps and a heat is waiting.

Channel layouts

A channel layout is one complete plan for your timer: which channel goes on which node. One channel per node, no gaps.

Layouts belong to the event. Making one never changes the timer's own settings.

Two different questions

The channel tick-boxes on the timer answer: what channels may this timer ever use?

A layout answers: what goes on which node in this event?

The timer's list is just the pool a new layout picks from.

Why you might want more than one layout:

• A bracket usually needs one layout for the whole tournament. Six channels for six pilots, and nobody moves.
• A qualifier often wants several, so each pilot can keep their own channel all round.

Neither is more correct. Pick what your event needs.

To make one, open Channel layouts at the bottom of the Timers page, name it (like Bracket A), and pick a channel for each node. Two rules:

• Two nodes on the same channel is an error. So is leaving a node empty — a layout has to be complete. Either one stops you saving.
• Using the same channel in two different layouts is only a warning. GridFPV names both layouts and the shared channels and tells you what it costs. That's fine for a bracket flying one layout. It's a problem if you wanted pilots to keep one channel across two qualifying layouts.

The IMD number

While you pick channels, GridFPV shows an IMD rating for the set, updating as you tick.

IMD stands for intermodulation distortion. In plain terms: when several video transmitters run at once, their signals mix and create extra fake signals. If one of those fakes lands on a channel somebody is using, that pilot gets interference. IMD scores how well your channel set avoids that.

It's the same number RotorHazard shows for the same channels, so it should match what you're used to.

• Higher is cleaner. 100 is the best possible. A genuinely bad set goes below zero.
• Next to the number, GridFPV names the worst offender — the exact mix causing the score, like 2 × Raceband R2 − Raceband R1 = 5732 MHz — lands on Raceband R3. Or it tells you plainly that nothing mixes close to a channel you're using.

It never stops you saving. A bad score saves like any other. There is no good/bad verdict on purpose, because the best score you can get drops as you add pilots — a Raceband-only timer genuinely cannot beat 0 with five pilots, and a fixed pass mark would just call every six-pilot layout bad.

The number is shown while you're still choosing, because that's the only moment it can change anything. A layout is set once and flown all event.

Stage 1 — Classes & Roster

This stage decides who races, and on what channel.

Your pilots and classes come from the lists on the home screen, so here you're mostly picking and arranging. Three sections:

Classes

Tick the classes this event runs, like Open and Spec. Need one that doesn't exist yet? Use + Add class. Your choice saves by itself.

Pilots

Mark who actually turned up:

1. Tick each pilot who is here, or use + Add pilot for someone new. Select all and Unselect all help with a big field.
2. Put those pilots into classes:
   • With one class, everyone is filled in for you.
   • With several classes, use each class's grid to Place all / Clear all, or tick people one at a time.

Running a simulator?

Sim players show up in the roster on their own as they join. You don't add them by hand.

Channels

Every placed pilot needs a channel. This is their fixed channel for qualifying and time trials.

1. If you have more than one timer, pick whose channels to use under Channels from….
2. Click Auto-assign channels to spread the available channels across everyone.
3. Change any individual pilot from the dropdown next to their name.

Auto-assign greyed out?

Your timer has no channels picked yet. Open the Timers stage and give it some. See channels vs nodes for what those words mean.

Stage 2 — Rounds & Heats

A round is a chunk of racing run one way — a time trial, a final, a practice session. See Round Formats.

A heat is one group of pilots flying together inside that round.

Set up a round

1. Click + Add round.
2. Fill in the form:
   • Label — a name like Qualifying R1 or Mains.
   • Format — Practice, Time Trials, or Head-to-Head.
   • Eligible class — which class races this round.
   • Win condition — how the heat ends and how pilots are ranked, like Timed — Most Laps (see Win conditions). Timed ones ask for a race time; lap-count ones ask for a number of laps.
   • Seeding — where the pilots come from. From roster is the usual start. From ranking pulls the top pilots out of an earlier round.
   • Channel layouts — which layouts this round's heats may use. Tick one and every heat uses it. Tick several and heats take turns through them, so back-to-back heats don't share channels. Tick none and channels are picked automatically.
   • Start & timing — see below. The defaults are fine; leave them unless you have a reason.
3. Save. You can Edit or Remove it later.

Start & timing settings

Setting	What it does	Default
Staging time	How long the "pilots to the line" countdown runs. Just a timer for you — nothing happens on its own.	5:00
Start delay	A short random wait between pressing Start and the go-tone, so nobody can time the start.	2–5s
Grace window	How long after the race ends that a late crossing still counts.	30s
Min lap time	Any lap shorter than this is removed automatically. See below.	5s
Protest window	0 means you press Finalize yourself. Any other number makes the result go official that many seconds after the race ends.	0

Min lap time is a racing rule, not a hardware fix

Min lap time means "a lap this short can't be real, so don't count it." It belongs to the round because it's about your track — a lap that's impossible on a big course might be normal on a tiny one.

It is not the setting for a gate that detects the same pass twice. That's the timer's same-pass window, and it lives on the timer. See gate bounce.

Refusals tell you why

Editing or removing a round isn't always allowed — a round with a heat in progress, for example. When GridFPV says no, it says it in words and names the heat: "this round has a heat in progress (Practice Heat) — finalize or reset it before removing the round".

Raced rounds lock their scoring rules

Once a round has raced heats, the settings that decide scoring lock: format, classes, win condition, seeding and min lap time. Changing them would quietly re-score races that already happened.

Still editable: the label, staging and start timing, grace window, protest window, and the heats-per-pilot count.

Make the heats

Each round has its own heat controls:

• Generate heats builds the lineups automatically from your roster and format. An open-ended round says Generate next heat instead and makes one at a time.
• Add heat lets you build one by hand.
• Heats are named <Round> Heat N — Qualifying Heat 1, Qualifying Heat 2. A Practice round makes a single Practice Heat.
• In Time Trials each pilot flies several heats on their own fixed channel, and the round's win condition ranks them. A later round can then seed From ranking off that.

Change a heat's channels or seating

While a heat is still Scheduled, two things are yours to change:

• Layout — a dropdown listing the layouts its round allows. Leave it on Automatic to take the round's rotation, or pin one. Each seat shows the channel from the layout that heat is flying, so what you read is what will actually race.
• Edit seating — for when the automatic lineup isn't what you want. You're filling the timer's gates, and a gate is allowed to be empty. Saving an empty seating clears your changes and hands the heat back to the automatic answer.

Once a heat has raced it keeps the channels it raced on, and still shows the layout it flew. That's the record.

Stage 3 — Race Control

This is where you actually run races. You drive one heat at a time. For the full list of states, see the heat lifecycle.

Pick the heat

The current heat and its state are shown large and colour-coded at the top. Use the picker to choose which heat you're running.

WARNING

The picker locks once a heat is staged or running. You can't switch heats mid-race. Finalize or abort the current one first.

Stage, then start

1. Stage the heat. This starts the "pilots to the line" countdown. Nothing happens automatically when it runs out — take your time and start when you're ready.
2. Start the heat. It arms, waits a short random moment so nobody can guess the exact go, then plays the start tone. You don't press anything in between.
3. The moment the wait is over, the heat goes Running on its own. Listen for the tone.

Race sound

The console is the race's voice, and the sound follows you to every page. You can stage a heat, walk over to Marshaling, and still hear everything.

• Race sounds are always on: the start tone, the countdown pips in the last 5 seconds, and the end-of-race buzzer.
• Lap callouts are the extra layer: a beep for each gate crossing, plus a spoken "‹callsign›, lap 3, 24.1". The Callouts switch in Race Control mutes these. The race sounds keep playing.

A beep with nobody flying is telling you something

You get a beep for every gate crossing, even one that scored nothing. That's on purpose. A beep when the track is empty means the gate is firing at nothing, and that's exactly the sort of problem you want to catch early instead of discovering in the results.

The one exception is a gate detecting the same pass twice — see gate bounce. Those are silent, because they aren't really separate crossings.

Watch the race

While Running, the live standings update per pilot: laps, last lap, best lap.

A timed heat shows a big countdown from the race time. Past zero it keeps counting into the grace window, turning yellow then red, with a smaller count-up clock beside it. Other heats just count up.

In Practice you get a practice board per channel instead, showing each channel's laps, last lap and best lap.

The race ends by itself when the win condition is met, plus the grace window (30s by default) so late crossings still count. The heat then goes to Unofficial. To end it early, press Stop.

The gate signal strip

A lap that doesn't show up looks the same on the board no matter what caused it. The Gate signal strip shows the live signal from each gate, with the threshold lines and crossing marks drawn on it. That lets you tell apart three different faults:

• a drone putting out no signal at all,
• a drone crossing but not strongly enough to trip the gate,
• a drone that never crossed.

It's collapsed by default and remembers that per event. Even collapsed, the header shows a live dot per gate, so a dead node is obvious without opening it.

It is read-only. You can't change a threshold from here, and GridFPV blocks threshold changes during a scored heat anyway. To actually set levels, see Tuning a Gate.

Practice ends differently

A Practice heat has no result to make official, so Race Control doesn't offer Finalize, Advance or Revert.

When the run ends you get Run complete — "Practice isn't scored — review the board, then Run again when you're ready" — and one button, Run again, which re-stages the same heat. Discard is there if you want the heat gone.

The laps from the run stay on the board, in the lap list and in Marshaling until you press Run again. So there's always a moment to look at what just happened.

Finish: Unofficial, then Final

• At Unofficial, the result is provisional. This is your window to fix things — see Marshaling.
• When it looks right, Finalize locks it as Final. Advance moves you to the next heat.

Ways out

Stop ends a running race now — pilots land, and the result stands as flown. Abort and Restart reset a heat all the way back to Scheduled so you can re-stage it. Discard throws the heat out entirely. The destructive ones ask you to confirm.

Stage 4 — Marshaling

Marshaling is where you fix a heat: correct laps against the recorded signal, apply penalties, handle protests, and set the official result.

It has its own page: Marshaling.

The short version: pick any heat (without disturbing the one Race Control is running), focus on one pilot, and fix their laps right on the list. Remove a crossing that never happened, Save a corrected lap time, Split a double-length lap, Throw out a lap that shouldn't count, or Add one the gate missed. Below that: penalties, protests, Finalize / Revert, and Void heat.

Every change is written down, and results update as you go.

Stage 5 — Results

The Results stage shows your standings and finished results. One selector at the top drives the whole page, so you always see exactly one thing:

• Per-class standings across all that class's rounds — position, pilot, points, best lap, laps, and rounds entered.
• Round standings for each scored round, filling in as races finish.
• Per-heat results — pick a heat for its finishing order: position, pilot, laps, the deciding number, and best lap.
• Export JSON downloads what you're looking at, with real callsigns rather than internal ids, for your own records.

Penalties are spelled out rather than hidden:

• A disqualified pilot gets a solid DQ badge and the reason — "Disqualified — ranked after every finisher" — with a link to the ruling in the audit trail. You can see why a pilot is last, not just that they are.
• A voided heat leads with a banner saying it doesn't count toward anything, and its table is dimmed so it can't be mistaken for a normal result.

A heat appears here once it is Final. Standings fill in as heats are finalized, so this page builds up naturally as the day goes.

Where to go next

• Round Formats — how to structure your rounds.
• Connecting a Timer — real hardware.
• Tuning a Gate — a gate that's missing laps.
• FAQ — quick questions.