Watch Drone Pilots Navigate One of the First-Ever Drone Racetracks

What makes first person view drone racing so appealing? "It's like Star Wars," Ryan Gury says, with a kidlike gleam in his eye, referring to the legendary scenes of pod racers zipping gleefully around obstacles.

Gury said those words a couple of months ago, when Motherboard first met him at a drone race in the Bronx. This time, we caught up with him in Ontario, where he was competing on one of the first FPV drone racetracks ever built.

FPV refers to the first-person view video goggles that enable drone pilots to see through their drone's camera as it flies. The experience is exhilarating, but can also be dizzying and nauseating—which is why the racers are carefully seated in folding chairs as they control their drones.

As Gury explains, a drone racetrack is different from your ordinary racetrack. Drones have to clear various obstacles laid on the track's path and swoop under arched gates, to show the pilot has a good control of altitude as well as speed and horizontal direction. All it takes is for the drone or one of its propellers to nick something to cause a crash.

Crashes are unfortunately very frequent—even Gury, who holds a lap record for speed, admits that he has never finished a race. One wipeout and you're finished, at least until the next go-round.

To prepare for this inevitability, all the drone racers have toolkits with them, fully stocked with hot glue and spare parts. Building and repairing your own drone takes a bit of "improvisation," as racer Daniel Pollit says, pointing out that various parts of his drone are made from tupperware, a golf club, and a towel rack.

As VICE correspondent Patrick McGuire takes his first spin behind the controls, we see that while drone racing may be a bit like grown-up Mario Kart, it takes a great deal more skill.