AWS DeepRacer League 2024 Championship finalists at re:Invent 2024
The AWS DeepRacer League is the world’s first global autonomous racing league powered by machine learning (ML). Over the past 6 years, a diverse community of over 560,000 builders from more than 150 countries worldwide have participated in the League to learn ML fundamentals hands-on through the fun of friendly autonomous racing. After an 8-month season of nail-biting virtual qualifiers, finalists convened in person at re:Invent in Las Vegas for one final showdown to compete for prizes and glory in the high-stakes, winner-take-all AWS DeepRacer League Championship. It wasn’t just the largest prize purse in DeepRacer history or the bragging rights of being the fastest builder in the world that was on the line—2024 marked the final year of the beloved League, and the winner of the 2024 Championship would also have the honor of being the very last AWS DeepRacer League Champion.
Tens of thousands raced in Virtual Circuit monthly qualifiers from March to October in an attempt to earn one of only four spots from six regions (24 spots in all), making qualifying for the 2024 Championship one of the most difficult to date. Finalists were tested on consistent performance over consecutive laps rather than “one lucky lap,” making the championship a true test of skill and dashing the championship dreams of some of the most prolific racers, community leaders, and former championship finalists during the regular season. When the dust settled, the best of the best from around the world secured their spots in the championship alongside returning 2023 champion FiatLux (Youssef Addioui) and 2023 Open Winner PolishThunder (Daryl Jezierski). For the rest of the hopefuls, there was only one more opportunity—the WildCard Last Chance qualifier on the Expo floor at re:Invent 2024—to gain entry into the final championship and etch their names in the annals of DeepRacer history.
In a tribute to the League’s origins, the Forever Raceway was chosen as the final championship track. This adaptation of the RL Speedway, which made its initial debut at the DeepRacer League Summit Circuit in 2022, presented a unique challenge: it’s nearly 30% narrower than tracks from the last five seasons, returning to a width only seen in the inaugural League season. The 76-centimeter-wide track leaves little room for error because it exaggerates the curves of the course and forces the vehicle to follow the track contours closely to stay within the borders.
The Wildcard Last Chance
As the Wildcard began on Monday night, the sidelines were packed with a mix of DeepRacer royalty and fresh-faced contenders, all vying for one of the coveted six golden tickets to round 1 of the championship. Twenty elite racers from all corners of the globe unleashed their best models onto the track, each looking for three clean laps (no off-tracks) in a mere 120 seconds to take their place alongside the Virtual Circuit champions.
The following image displays the 2024 qualifiers.
Newcomer and JP Morgan Chase (JPMC) DeepRacer Women’s League winner geervani (Geervani Kolukuluri) made her championship debut, dominating the competition early and showing the crowd exactly why she was the best of the league’s 829 participants and one of the top racers of the 4,400 that participated from JP Morgan Chase in 2024. She was nipping at the heels of community leader, DeepRacer for Cloud contributor, and Wildcard pack leader MattCamp, and less than a second behind SimonHill, another championship rookie and winner of the Eviden internal league.
But the old guard wasn’t about to go down without a fight. DeepRacer legend LeadingAI (Jacky Chen), an educator and mentor to Virtual Circuit winner AIDeepRacer (Nathan Liang), landed the fourth best time of 9.527, slightly ahead of Jerec (Daniel Morgan), who returned to the finals after taking third place in the 2023 Championship. Duckworth (Lars Ludvigson), AWS Community Builder and solutions developer, took the sixth and final Wildcard spot, less than three-tenths of a second above the rest of the pack.
The field of 32 begins
The first 16 of 32 code warriors hit the track on Tuesday, each one going for glory in two heart-pounding, 2-minute sprints to secure their spot in the bracket of eight over 2 days of competition. MattCamp proved he was no one-hit wonder by blazing across the finish line with Tuesday’s fastest time of 8.223 seconds, geervani still just milliseconds behind at 8.985. Asian Pacific regional stars TonyJ (Tony Jenness) and CodeMachine (Igor Maksaev Brockway) came out swinging, claiming their place in the top four just ahead of 2023 champion FiatLux of the EMEA region, who dug deep to stay in the game, finishing fifth with a time of 9.223. Liao (Wei-Chen Liao), Nevertari (Neveen Ahmed), and BSi (Bobby Stenly) also edged above the pack as the day of racing ended, their positions precarious as they hovered just inside the top eight for the day.
The tension was high and the stands full on Wednesday as the second day of Round 1 racing began, the second 16 ready to burn rubber and leave the Tuesday competitors in the dust. AIDeepRacer (Nathan Liang) quickly dethroned MattCamp with a blistering time of 8.102, looking to redeem himself from barely missing the bracket of eight in the 2022 Championship. 2023 Global points winner rosscomp1 (Ross Williams) slid into the top four right behind the indomitable SimonHill, while geervani, TonyJ, and CodeMachine managed to stay in the game as the Wednesday racers tried to best their times.
A mechanical failure in his second attempt gave community leader MarkRoss one last attempt to break into the top eight. His 8.635-second run looked like it might just be his ticket to Round 2, but a challenge from the sidelines had everyone holding their breath. The tension was palpable as the DeepRacer Pit Crew reviewed video footage to determine if Mark’s car had stayed within track limits, knowing that a spot in the semifinals—and a shot at the $25,000 grand prize—hung in the balance. Mark’s hopes were dashed when the replay revealed all four wheels left the track, and PolishThunder snuck into Round 2 by the skin of their teeth, claiming the coveted eighth-place spot.
The following images show Blaine Sundrud and Ryan Myrehn commentating on Round 2 (left) and the off-track footage (right).
And then there were eight
On Thursday morning, racers and spectators returned to the Forever Raceway for the bracket of eight, a series of head-to-head battles pitting the top racers against each other in a grueling double elimination format. Each matchup was another contest of speed and accuracy, another chance for the undefeatable to be toppled from their thrones and underdogs to scrap their way back into contention in the last chance bracket, as shown in the following image.
First seed AIDeepRacer dominated their first two matchups, sending rosscomp1 and PolishThunder to early defeat, definitively earning a place in the final three. Sixth seed TonyJ couldn’t get his average lap under 12 seconds against third seed SimonHill, while fellow regional heavyweight CodeMachine was unable to close the 1-second gap between him and second seed MattCamp, the strong favorite coming out of the Wildcard and round 1. That left MattCamp and SimonHill to one last battle for a place in the top three, with SimonHill finally gaining the upper hand in a 9.026- to 9.478-second shootout, sending MattCamp to the Last Chance bracket to try to fight his way back to the top.
With one final spot in the top three up for grabs, five-time championship finalist and eighth-seed PolishThunder, who was stunned into defeat in the very first matchup of the day, mounted an equally stunning comeback as he bested fifth seed geervani in match five and then knocked out fellow DeepRacer veteran, friend, and fourth-seed rosscomp1 with a remarkable 8.389-second time. MattCamp regained his mojo to beat TonyJ in match 10, setting him and PolishThunder up for a showdown to see who would go up against SimonHill and AIDeepRacer in the finale. Undaunted, PolishThunder toppled the Wildcard winner once and for all, taking him one step closer to being the DeepRacer Champion.
The final three
After almost 4 days of triumph and heartbreak, only three competitors remained for one final winner-take-all time trial that would determine, for the last time, the fastest builder in the world. Commentators Ryan Myrehn and Blaine Sundrud, who have been with the DeepRacer program since the very beginning, took to the mic together as the sidelines filled with finalists, spectators, and Pit Crew eager to see who would take home the championship trophy.
Prior to their final lap, each racer was able to choose a car and calibrate it to their liking, giving them an opportunity to optimize for the best performance with their chosen model. A coin toss decided the racing direction, counterclockwise, and each was given 1 minute to test the newly calibrated cars to make sure they were happy with their adjustments. With three cars tested, calibrated, and loaded with their best models, it was down to just 6 minutes of racing that would determine the 2024 Champion.
PolishThunder took to the track first, starting the finale strong as his model averaged a mere 8.436 seconds in laps five, six, and seven, setting a high bar for his competitors. SimonHill answered with a blazing 8.353 seconds, the fastest counterclockwise average of the competition, edging out the comeback king with less than a pixel’s width between them. Then, with just one race left, the crowd watched with bated breath as the competition’s top seed AIDeepRacer approached the starting line, hoping to replicate his enviable lap times from previous rounds. After a tense 2 minutes, first-time competitor SimonHill held onto first place, winning the $25,000 grand prize, the coveted DeepRacer trophy, and legendary status as the final DeepRacer champion. PolishThunder, who previously hadn’t broken the top six in his DeepRacer career, finished second, and AIDeepRacer third for his second, and best, championship appearance since his debut in 2022.
As the final chapter came to a close and trophies were handed out, racers and Pit Crew who have worked, competed, and built lifelong friendships around a 1/18th scale autonomous car celebrated together one more time on the very last championship track. Although the League may have concluded, the legacy of DeepRacer and its unique ability to teach ML and the foundations of generative AI through gamified learning continues. Support for DeepRacer in the AWS console will continue through the end of 2025, and DeepRacer will enter a new era as organizations around the world will also be able to launch their own leagues and competitions at a fraction of the cost with the AWS DeepRacer Solution. Featuring the same functionality as the console and deployable anywhere, the Solution will also contain new workshops and resources bridging fundamental concepts of ML using AWS DeepRacer with foundation model (FM) training and fine-tuning techniques, using AWS services such as Amazon SageMaker and Amazon Bedrock for popular industry use cases. Look for the Solution to kickstart your company’s ML transformation starting in Q2 of 2025.
The following images show championship finalists and pit crew at re:Invent 2024 (left) and 2024 League Champion Simon Hill with his first-place trophy (right).
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Join the DeepRacer community at deepracing.io.
About the Author
Jackie Moffett is a Senior Project Manager in the AWS AI Builder Programs Product Marketing team. She believes hands-on is the best way to learn and is passionate about building better systems to create exceptional customer experiences. Outside of work she loves to travel, is addicted to learning new things, and definitely wants to say hi to your dog.