Ice Storm Drone Racing returns to Milwaukee’s Pettit in April 2026

School pilots and pro pilots will share the same floor at the Pettit National Ice Center, and that is what makes Ice Storm Drone Racing more than another weekend on the calendar. The April 24-26 event in Milwaukee will again use one of the country’s most unusual racing venues, where a school-heavy pipeline meets elite competition inside an indoor arena built for speed skating, not prop wash.

Ice Storm is billed as one of the largest indoor drone racing events in the United States, and its 2026 format keeps leaning into that mix of development and high-end competition. School races and pro races are both on the program, with school teams open to middle school, high school and college groups. Each team can carry two to four members, including pilots, spotters and pit crew, which makes the weekend feel more like a full racing operation than a solo showcase. A current student-team registration form lists a $500 fee for a team of four student pilots.

That structure matters because it gives fans a clean view of how drone racing grows. Milwaukee Montessori School created the first Drone Race Competition in 2022, and the event has since become a repeat stop rather than a one-off novelty. The inaugural pro race drew experienced pilots from around the country and carried $25,000 in cash prizes, a sign that the Pettit experiment had real competitive weight from the start. Local coverage at the time called it Wisconsin’s first indoor professional drone racing competition over ice, and that identity still defines the weekend.

The venue is a big part of the appeal. The Pettit National Ice Center has two international-size rinks and a 400-meter speed skating oval, giving organizers a large, controlled indoor space for fast FPV racing. It is also a U.S. speedskating training facility and one of only thirty indoor 400-meter ovals in the world. That kind of setting gives the event a different feel from a gym or convention hall; it has the scale and polish of a serious sports venue, with enough room to make the laps look fast even before the timing system says so.

That prestige is not accidental. The Pettit hosted U.S. Olympic Team Trials for long track speedskating in 2018 and 2022, and Ice Storm is now adding drone racing to a building already used to elite competition. With registration and ticketing active, Milwaukee once again gets a weekend that connects the grassroots classroom to the pro grid, and it does it in a place built to handle speed.