Ready First Tops Drone Racing at 1st Armored Division Torch Week

An official update listed Ready First brigade as the winner of the 1st Armored Division’s Torch Week drone racing, saying "Ready First brigade tops drone racing with 57 points, followed by Bulldog Brigade at 33 and Iron Steel at 31 in the Torch Week competitions." That same release added that the event "underscores innovation and emerging tech across the division" and that the "Official update showcases competitive spirit."

The races were run at Fort Bliss, Texas, on March 3, 2026, where, as the event description notes, "U.S. Soldiers assigned to 1st Armored Division compete for the fastest time during a drone race event, March 3, 2026, during Torch Week 2026, at Fort Bliss, Texas." Torch Week is an annual event that the division uses to commemorate its World War II role in the North Africa invasion of 1942, known as Operation Torch.

Scoring totals differ in the public record. An Instagram post posted a separate scoreboard reading "The competition continues across the 1st Armored Division as brigades push to the top: Ready First – 54 points Bulldog Brigade – 32 points." The Instagram update lists only Ready First and Bulldog Brigade, while the official update adds Iron Steel with 31 points; no source in the record explicitly reconciles the discrepancy between 57/33/31 and 54/32.

Video footage of the event is available from Media Magik Entertainment, which posted "Drone Racing with Soldiers of the 1st Armored Division at Fort Bliss" on March 3, 2026. The channel is listed with 317,000 subscribers; the video shows 771 views, 35 likes, and 3 comments. The video description repeats that Soldiers "compete for the fastest time" during Torch Week and credits "Footage provided by Spc. Kendall Asher and Sgt. Michael Graf." The upload includes the hashtags #usa #army #drone.

The Fort Bliss races follow earlier Army experimentation with first-person view drone operations. Europeafrica Army Mil reported that "Soldiers conducted a live fire of first-person view drones for the first time at the Grafenwoehr Training Area, Germany, Feb. 17-20, 2025." That Feb. 2025 milestone and the Torch Week timed races both appear in official material as examples of the division’s emphasis on emerging technology.

At present the public record contains two competing score lines for the Torch Week drone racing. The official update carries Ready First at 57 points with Bulldog at 33 and Iron Steel at 31; the social-media scoreboard carries Ready First at 54 and Bulldog at 32. Officials have not published a single, consolidated final scoreboard in the available material, leaving the Ready First victory clear in placement but not in universally confirmed point totals.