This article contains content that is written like an advertisement .(January 2019) |
Sport | Drone racing |
---|---|
Category | Air sports |
Abbreviation | DRL |
Founded | 2015 |
Location | United States |
Official website | |
thedroneracingleague |
The Drone Racing League (DRL) is a professional drone racing league that operates internationally. [1] [2] DRL pilots race in first person view with identical, custom-built drones at speeds above 80 mph through three-dimensional courses. [3] News publication Quartz described DRL as feeling "like from Star Wars" with "hopes [of becoming] the Formula One, NASCAR and MotoGP of drone racing." [4]
Founded in 2015 and launched publicly in January 2016, DRL is broadcast on Twitter, NBC, NBC Sports, Sky Sports, ProSiebenSat.1, FOX Sports Asia, Groupe AB, and OSN. [5] Former broadcast partners include ESPN and Disney XD. [6] [7]
The league is currently in its fourth season, the 2019 DRL Allianz World Championship Season, which features seven races in locations including Allianz Riviera in Nice, France, BMW Welt in Munich, Germany, and The Adventuredome in Las Vegas, Nevada. [8]
DRL recently launched the Artificial Intelligence Robotic Racing (AIRR) Circuit, an autonomous drone racing series. [9] It will invite teams of university students and technologists to design an AI framework capable of flying a drone through DRL courses without human intervention and compete for a chance to win $1,000,000 in prizes. [9]
DRL CEO and founder Nicholas Horbaczewski started the league in 2015 after serving as the chief revenue officer of Tough Mudder. [10] [11] Horbaczewski purchased a company called DroneKraft to develop an internal technology department. [10] [11]
Horbaczewski partnered with Ryan Gury, who designed and built the league's drones and serves as its director of product. [12] [13] Early investors included Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross. [14] [15]
In September 2016, DRL announced global media distribution agreements with ESPN, Sky and ProSieben, and a close of $12mm in Series A funding, led by RSE Ventures and Lux Capital. Other investors included MGM Television, CAA Ventures, Hearst Ventures, Lerer Hippeau Ventures, Courtside Ventures and Strauss Zelnick. [16] [17]
In February 2017, DRL announced global insurance company, Allianz, as the title sponsor of their international race circuit, the DRL Allianz World Championship Season. [18]
That summer, DRL announced additional brand partners including Amazon Prime Video, BMW, Swatch, and the U.S. Air Force, [19] [20] [21] expanded media partnerships with OSN, Disney XD, and FOX Sports Asia, as well as a close of $20,000,000 of Series B funding, adding new stakeholders including WWE, Allianz, Sky, Liberty Media and CRCM Ventures. [22] [23]
In 2018, DRL announced new sponsorship agreements with Lockheed Martin and Cox Communications, [24] [25] [26] as well as extended relationships with Allianz, BMW, the U.S. Air Force, and Fatshark. [27] [28] [29]
In 2019, DRL signs a new U.S. broadcast deal with NBC Sports and will planned to carry 44 hours of coverage on NBCSN and the NBC broadcast network. [30]
In January 2021, DRL officially announced that DraftKings would be awarded the official betting partner label. This enables the company to gain betting and marketing advantages in its league. [31] DRL also announced new sponsorship agreements with T-Mobile, Algorand and Draganfly. Ahead of the start of the 2021–22 season, it was announced that NBCSN would shut down at the end of 2021, with the date of December 31 as the actual date; the DRL announced that the remainder of the 2021–22 season would move to the NBC network following the closure of NBCSN.
Horbaczewski claims that at its core, DRL is a technology company. [32] DRL's expert engineers hand-built a fleet of identical racing drones, developed a proprietary radio system to enable DRL drones to race through large scale courses through eight feet of concrete, [33] and created a realistic drone racing sim, the DRL Simulator. [34]
According to Horbaczewski, DRL "develop[s] all of our drones in-house" [35] in order to "create a level playing field" for races. [36] For Horbaczewski, "it was important to make sure that when you saw a pilot win a race, you knew that was the best pilot, not necessarily the person flying a faster drone." [35]
All DRL drones are identical in spec, but are covered in hundreds of ultra-bright LEDs to help viewers easily follow the action. As described by Wired, the LED rigs also "lend a Tron-like aesthetic to the races." [37]
Built for speed rather than stability, DRL drones differ from commercial drones. Beginning in 2020, a variant of the latest model flown by DRL pilots will be available to the public. [38]
Since its launch, DRL pilots have flown three types of drones: the Racer2 in 2016, the Racer3 in 2017–2018, and the Racer4 beginning in 2019. [38]
In 2016, DRL traveled with a fleet of 100 Racer2 drones to its races. The Racer2 had two or three minutes of battery life, topping out at 80 mph. The drone weighed slightly heavier than a normal racing drone due to the LED lights covering each craft, needed for visibility and pilot identification. [39]
Racer2 drones also had exposed electronics that made them more susceptible to damage from crashes. [40]
In 2017, DRL introduced the Racer3 drone, flown by DRL pilots throughout the 2017 and 2018 DRL Allianz World Championship Seasons. The Racer3 is more powerful and agile than the Racer2 and can accelerate from 0 to 80 mph in less than a second and fly as high as 6-8 kilometers. [41]
The Racer3 has 16 pounds of thrust (~7:1 thrust as it weight ~1 kg, good fpv quads are ~12:1) with a top speed of around 90 mph. [42] [43]
Unlike the Racer2, the Racer3 has a hard shell or canopy to protect it from crashes. [40]
DRL brought a fleet of identical 600 Racer3 drones to every race in 2018. [44]
In July 2017, Ryan Gury and his team of drone engineers designed and hand built the DRL RacerX, the former Guinness World Record holder for the Fastest Ground Speed by a Battery-powered Remote-controlled Quadcopter. Weighing less than two pounds, the RacerX hit a top speed of 179.6 miles per hour, the official speed was recorded as 163.5 miles per hour.
Earlier prototypes of the RacerX burst into flames when hitting its peak acceleration due to the amount of power it used. [45]
In the 4th season, DRL introduced the all new Racer4 drone. While visually similar to the Racer3, the Racer 4 boasts larger props at the expense of added weight.
To broaden the accessibility of drone racing, DRL created the DRL Simulator, which helps pilots fly FPV better in real life, and is downloadable on Steam. [46] The sim features a 50-mission tutorial to help teach aspiring pilots how to fly before buying a real drone. Once in-game, pilots can fly real drones on real DRL race maps that they have seen on television. [47]
The league holds an annual live esports tournament on the DRL Sim called the Swatch DRL Tryouts, which transform gamers into pro pilots overnight. The winner of the competition earns a spot as the official Swatch Pilot in The Drone Racing League with a $75,000 professional contract. [48] Recent pilot recruits from the Tryouts include Jacob "Jawz" Schneider and Emmanuel "UFO" Mota. [49] [50]
DRL launched its first season in January 2016 and hosted five professional races. [51] Races took place across the country at venues such as the Miami Dolphins NFL HardRock Stadium, the abandoned Hawthorne Mall in Los Angeles, a laboratory in New York, a paper mill in Hamilton, Ohio and an auto plant in Detroit. [52]
In its first season DRL was broadcast in over 40 countries, on SkySports, ESPN and ProsiebenSat.1, and over 75 million fans tuned in to watch DRL races and content, either online or on TV. [53]
Sixteen pilots competed in the 2016 Season, [41] and Jordan "Jet" Temkin from Fort Collins, Colorado won the inaugural Championship, earning a $100,000 contract to become the first professional drone pilot. [54] Jet's victory earned him an automatic place in DRL's 2017 season.
The league's 2017 television season kicked off on June 20 on ESPN and was broadcast in more than 75 countries with additional broadcast partners including Sky Sports, ProSiebenSat.1, Disney XD and OSN. [51] The 2017 season included 16 hours of DRL original content. [36]
Races in 2017 took place at the Miami Dolphins NFL Sunlife Stadium, an emergency response and disaster training center in Atlanta, a float storage warehouse in New Orleans, a paper mill in Boston (located in Fitchburg, MA), an abandoned motorcycle factory in Munich and in London's iconic Alexandra Palace. [55] The Allianz World Championship held at Alexandra Palace became the first drone racing event to have featured betting markets at Paddy Power Betfair. Players could place bets on individual heat winners and the grand champion via the Betfair Sportsbook mobile app. [56]
Defending champion Jet beat out fellow pilot Gab707 in the last heat of the final, claiming the title of the world's fastest drone racer for a second year in a row. [57]
This article needs additional citations for verification .(April 2019) |
Dunkan became the first DRL pilot to win three levels in a single season and the only pilot to win three levels consecutively.
Jet's run as DRL's only champion (having won both the 2016 and 2017 seasons) ended when he failed to accumulate enough points during the 2018 DRL World Championship Finals.
Paul "Nurk" Nurkkala, reaching his first World Championship Finals, beat fellow pilot Gab707 and rookie pilot Nubb to win the Golden Heat and clinch the 2018 DRL World Championship title.
In his breakout season, rookie Alex Vanover took the World Championship title in Phoenix, Arizona. He secured enough seasonal points to clinch the world championship title with three levels wins before the end of the season.
The season started at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Florida, where Vanover took his first level win at his debut DRL race. 2018 world champion Nurk would go on to win level two.
At Allianz Field in St. Paul Minnesota, Vanover would take his second level win of the season, winning level three. In level four, Gab707 would take the win.
At Chase Field in Phoenix Arizona, 2018 runner up Nubb took the level five win, in front of the first live audience DRL race in the United States. Vanover would come back to win level six, with enough points to clinch the 2019 season.
The 2020 season was cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and instead they planned a fundraising tournament called the 2020 FanDuel DRL SIM Racing Cup, to raise funds for DirectRelief's COVID-19 relief efforts.
DRL recruits drone pilots from around the globe to compete on original courses. Two groups of six pilots compete during separate rounds of semifinals, and the fastest three pilots from each group move on to the finals. The semifinals and finals races each include multiple heats that each last about a minute long. Pilots are awarded points based on their placement in each heat and the fastest pilot with the most points at the end wins the race, earning a guaranteed spot in the World Championship finale. [58] [59]
DRL films all of its races for a broadcast and digital audience. In order to capture racing quad-copters that fly almost 90 mph, DRL designs and manages the entire drone racing and broadcast ecosystem for its events, including the timing and length of races. [60]
The DRL media team uses 50 to 60 cameras per event and the drone itself has two cameras: an SD low latency analogue HS1177 600TVL for pilot navigation and a GoPro Session 5 for post-production, both of which operate automatically with no remote controls. [60]
The races are not broadcast live; they are post-produced for broadcast. [5] [60]
Kyle Thomas Busch is an American professional stock car racing driver. He competes full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series, driving the No. 8 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 for Richard Childress Racing and part-time in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, driving the No. 7 Chevrolet Silverado for Spire Motorsports. Busch is the 2009 NASCAR Nationwide Series champion and the 2015 and 2019 Cup Series champion. Busch is currently 9th on the all-time NASCAR Cup Series wins list and his dominance of NASCAR's three major series has him ranked as one of the greatest racing drivers of all time. Busch is also a one-time WWE 24/7 Champion. He is the younger brother of 2004 NASCAR Nextel Cup Series champion Kurt Busch.
Anthony James Allmendinger, nicknamed "The Dinger,” is an American professional stock car racing driver. He competes full-time in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, driving the No. 16 Chevrolet Camaro for Kaulig Racing and part-time in the NASCAR Cup Series, driving the No. 16 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 for Kaulig Racing.
Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) is an American professional stock car racing organization founded by Pro Football Hall of Fame coach Joe Gibbs. His son, J. D. Gibbs, ran the team with him until his death in 2019. Founded in Huntersville, North Carolina, in 1992. JGR has won five Cup Series championships.
Arie Luyendyk Jr. is a Dutch-American auto racing driver, television personality, and son of two-time Indianapolis 500 winner Arie Luyendyk. He has competed mostly in North America where his father lives and made his career. Luyendyk is best known for competing in the Indy Lights Series where he finished 2nd, 3rd and 4th in the Championship over a number of years. He was named a test-driver in A1 Grand Prix alongside Jeroen Bleekemolen for A1 Team The Netherlands starting the 2007–08 season.
The IndyCar Series operation of McLaren, competing as Arrow McLaren IndyCar Team due to sponsorship, is based in Indianapolis and was founded by former IndyCar driver Sam Schmidt in 2001 as Sam Schmidt Motorsports. The team operates the Nos. 5, 6 and 7 Dallara-Chevrolet entries for Pato O'Ward, David Malukas and Alexander Rossi respectively.
Brendon Morris Hartley is a New Zealand professional racing driver who is currently competing in the FIA World Endurance Championship with Toyota Gazoo Racing.
There are several sports broadcasting contracts in Australia.
In the United States, sports are televised on various broadcast networks, national and specialty sports cable channels, and regional sports networks. U.S. sports rights are estimated to be worth a total of $22.42 billion in 2019, about 44 percent of the total worldwide sports media market. U.S. networks are willing to pay a significant amount of money for television sports contracts because it attracts large amounts of viewership; live sport broadcasts accounted for 44 of the 50 list of most watched television broadcasts in the United States in 2016.
Esteban Manuel Gutiérrez Gutiérrez is a Mexican racing driver currently competing in the 2023 FIA World Endurance Championship for Glickenhaus Racing and the 2023 IMSA SportsCar Championship for CrowdStrike Racing by APR. He is also a development driver for Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team.
ESPN SpeedWorld is a former television series broadcast on ESPN from 1979 to 2006. The program that was based primarily based around NASCAR, CART, IMSA, Formula One, NHRA, and IHRA. The theme music is based on the piano interlude from "18th Avenue " by Cat Stevens.
Kyle Busch Motorsports (KBM) was an American professional stock car racing team that competed in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. They formerly competed in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, CARS Tour, ARCA/CRA Super Series, Southern Super Series, ARCA Menards Series, ARCA Menards Series East, and ARCA Menards Series West, and was also the parent company of Super Late Model chassis constructor Rowdy Manufacturing. Originally fielding Toyota Tundras since its inception, the team switched to Chevrolet Silverados beginning in 2023. The team last fielded two full-time Chevrolet Silverados: the No. 4 for Chase Purdy and the No. 51, which was driven each year by the team owner Kyle Busch along with Jack Wood and multiple Chevrolet drivers from other NASCAR series.
The NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series is a drag racing series organized by the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA). It is the top competition series of the NHRA, comprising competition in four classes, including Top Fuel Dragster, Funny Car, Pro Stock, and Pro Stock Motorcycle.
American Flat Track is an American motorcycle racing series. The racing series, founded and sanctioned by the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) in 1954, originally encompassed five distinct forms of competitions including mile dirt track races, half-mile, short-track, TT steeplechase and road races. The championship was the premier motorcycle racing series in the United States from the 1950s up until the late 1970s.
Shea Holbrook is an American professional racing driver, entrepreneur and spokeswoman. Currently, she is in retirement starting a family.
Drone racing is a sport where participants control "drones", equipped with cameras while wearing head-mounted displays showing the live stream camera feed. Similar to full-size air racing, the goal is to complete a course as quickly as possible. Drone racing began in 2011 in Germany with a number of amateur drone controllers getting together for semi-organized races in Karlsruhe.
The International Drone Racing Association, Inc. (IDRA) is a professional racing organization that sanctions and governs multiple drone racing events. IDRA's major events and series' include the 2017 Challengers Cup, 2016 World Drone Prix, 2016 North America Cup, 2016 GiGA World Masters, and the 2015 California Cup.
MultiGP is a global drone racing league that governs and manages radio-controlled drone racing competitions. With over 14,000 members and 544 chapters worldwide, MultiGP is the only drone racing league with clear and available methods for participation and advancement within the league. MultiGP governs and sanctions drone racing events across the world, provides turn-key race production services, and works with groups to grow the sport of drone racing.
Airspeeder is an electric flying vehicle racing series based in London, United Kingdom. The aircraft, built by Alauda Aeronautics, use electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) technology and are designed to be crewed by human pilots. The first remotely-piloted drag race between two Airspeeder craft took place in November 2021. A remotely-piloted racing series began in 2022 with Zephatali Walsh named as the inaugural season champion.
The 2017 Ford EcoBoost 200 was the 23rd and final stock car race of the 2017 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, the sixth race of the 2017 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series playoffs, the championship 4 race, and the 22nd iteration of the event. The race was held on Friday, November 17, 2017, in Homestead, Florida at Homestead–Miami Speedway, a 1.5 miles (2.4 km) permanent oval-shaped racetrack. The race took the scheduled 134 laps to complete. At race's end, Chase Briscoe, driving for Brad Keselowski Racing, would dominate the race to win his first career NASCAR Camping World Truck Series win and his only win of the season.
Enter Nicholas Horbaczewski, who before starting the league found success as the Chief Revenue Officer of Tough Mudder. In early 2015, Horbazewski left his job with the hopes of starting his own company.
While the drone maxes out at a reasonable 25 miles per hour, it seems absolutely pedestrian compared with the 90 mph achievable with the League's professional Racer3.