Watch Some of the Best Drone Racing We’ve Ever Seen

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Watch Some of the Best Drone Racing We’ve Ever Seen

​People are getting really goddamn good at drone racing.
Rachel Pick
New York, US

People are getting really goddamn good at drone racing.

This video shows some amazingly fast fliers zipping around a course that's partially outdoors and partially inside a warehouse stacked with boxes. It's shot from an HD camera mounted on one of the drones, an Impulse RC Alien 5, which has to clear hoops and make hairpin turns. It flies flawlessly, up until a last-second midair collision with a competitor.

Almost as remarkable as the drone's speed is the crystal-clear picture provided by the drone's camera, which is some of the best quality footage I've seen. One YouTuber was similarly impressed, commenting "How is that even fucking possible."

Motherboard has covered the nascent sport of drone racing before, but learning how to fly a drone involves a lot of falling down and getting back up, with sometimes costly repairs in between. When Motherboard visited a drone racetrack in Canada, a man who held a lap record for speed admitted he'd still never been able to finish a race without crashing.

It takes a lot of patience, and practice, to get this good—and even this highly skilled anonymous drone racer still wipes out. So close.