Georgia broke her dad’s heart when she’d used starting GCSEs as an excuse to get out of a twelve-round season in the UK Drone Racing League. But he’d talked her into a one-off appearance, at the qualifying rounds of the Rage Cola Classic during half-term week.

Drone racing had grown massively since Georgia had started. The courses she’d raced when she was nine were set up by middle-aged hobbyists, who hired school gyms and car parks and made the gates drones flew through out of garden wire and swimming floats, anchored down with concrete blocks or beer kegs.

Rage Cola had spent big money, filling the disused carpet warehouse with professionally built air gates, lit with coloured LED strips. There were huge banks of lights, a laser tunnel, cameras covering every angle of the course and even smoke machines for the following day’s final, which would be live-streamed on the Rage Cola website, with highlights on satellite TV.

‘Feelin’ the buzz?’ Georgia’s dad – John Pack – asked, as he sat on a tabletop next to his youngest daughter’s outstretched Nikes.

‘I guess,’ she answered, yawning as she looked up from her phone.

John tapped his watch. ‘Fifteen minutes till your final qualifier.’

Georgia was carefully balancing the way she acted around her dad. He’d had a crap year, with Georgia’s mum walking out, his older daughter having work and debt problems and his survey drone company losing its biggest contract.

She’d agreed to fly the Rage Classic because she hoped it would cheer her dad up. But since saying she’d take part, he’d not stopped going on about how the event might rekindle her interest in flying. So, Georgia had to make clear today wasn’t her idea of fun, while not being a total shit and spoiling her father’s weekend.

‘Steve replaced the wiring to the motor that kept dropping in your first qualifier,’ John said. ‘He’s not happy with the power distribution board either. We don’t have a spare, so your Uncle Phil is trying to beg or borrow from another team.’

Georgia wasn’t concerned. Her quadcopter could go from zero to a hundred kilometres per hour in four seconds. She’d had a big crash in free practice and it would have seemed odder if there wasn’t some last-minute mechanical drama.

‘Has Steve taken back forward trim, like I asked?’ Georgia said.

The more a drone tilted forward in flight, the faster it would go in a straight line, but a flatter profile would make it more stable and manoeuvrable.

John shook his head. ‘Steve says …’

‘He never does what I ask,’ Georgia interrupted furiously. ‘If Steve knows so much about flying, how come he didn’t make it out of the first qualifying round?’

‘He’s always been a better technician than a pilot, Georgia.’