Dallas Drone Racing spotlights Caddo Mills students at national championship

Zach Bean, Federico Dominguez, Connor Nickell and Aiden Pruitt gave Caddo Mills High School a national stage in Detroit, a sign that North Texas drone racing is producing more than weekend competitors. Dallas Drone Racing used its May 13 update to spotlight the quartet as part of the Caddo Mills team at Drones in School Nationals, tying the school program directly to the sport’s championship pathway.

That matters because this was not a one-off showcase. Drones in School’s 2025-26 championship race was scheduled for May 13 and 14 in Detroit at AUVSI XPONENTIAL, with 15 high school teams and 15 middle school teams expected. Teams earned their way there through a season-long points race, and the format included simulator races, virtual races, live races and wildcard spots. In other words, the Caddo Mills students were not simply invited to show up. They had moved through a full competitive system that rewarded consistency, technical skill and adaptability.

Dallas Drone Racing’s role shows how that pipeline works in North Texas. The club identified itself as an AMA- and MultiGP-sanctioned organization based in Carrollton that serves the Dallas-Fort Worth area, with scheduled MultiGP racing events at its home field. That gives students a place to train, race and measure themselves against the same standards used across the broader FPV scene. The club had already signaled the Caddo Mills connection in December, when it said it would be at Caddo Mills High School for indoor racing from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., and again in February, when it said its last trip to Caddo Mills had a strong showing and that another visit was coming in April.

The bigger picture is that drone racing is increasingly functioning as a STEM feeder system. MultiGP’s STEM Alliance says it works with middle school, high school and college students and uses drone racing to foster STEM education, while MultiGP describes itself as the world’s largest drone racing league and FPV community. Drones in School says the competition gives students a real racing-team experience while applying classroom learning to real life, and the championship’s placement inside XPONENTIAL, which ran May 11-14 at Huntington Place in Detroit, connected student competition to the uncrewed-systems industry floor.

For Caddo Mills, that combination of school support, club infrastructure and national championship access is the story. The students were not just racing in front of a crowd. They were moving through a system that can turn classroom training and local practice into a credible path to national competition.