Drone Racing Grows Into Major Competitive Sport in South Florida | Miami New Times
Drone Racing Grows Into Major Competitive Sport
Approach and the first thing you hear is buzzing. It’s like a swarm of food processors flying overhead. Look up. In the twilight sky, Tron-like flashes of neon turn circles, some stopping midair before diving close to the ground at breakneck speed.
They’re like tiny comets or steroid-stoked fireflies.Suddenly, one of the darting lights does a barrel roll and stops midair. On a dime, it shoots down like a bullet toward a glowing hoop. It sails through and heads toward another. But the angle isn’t quite right. A propeller clips the hoop, and it spins out as if it were a fighter jet hit by enemy fire. Then it hurtles toward the ground and crashes in a heap.
“F*ck,” shouts a stocky, bearded 34-year-old Nelson Aquino, shoving a pair of white plastic goggles up onto his forehead. “Nobody fly anything for a second. I have to go get that.”Welcome to an event called Night Fly at Davie’s Vista View Park, home to one of only five public drone-racing tracks in the nation.
The kings of the park are unquestionably a group to which Aquino belongs — the Gravity Goons, sponsored, semiprofessional drone pilots who are becoming well known in the budding racing world.
