A Look At the Swankiest, Priciest Drone Race Yet

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A Look At the Swankiest, Priciest Drone Race Yet

Drone racing is now a million-dollar sport.

It's still not clear where drone racing is going to fit among other sports like NASCAR, especially since the Federal Aviation Administration has been so finicky in deciding exactly how to regulate the manless aerial vehicles. But what we do know is that a ton of money is being dumped into competitions supporting the new hobby.

The latest example is Dubai's World Drone Prix, the largest global drone race. The race took place earlier this month and was one of the priciest of its kind, offering $1 million in prize money, bankrolled by the United Arab Emirates.

The $250,000 grand prize went to a teen, 15-year-old Luke Bannister, who beat out 150 other teams in a series of qualifying rounds. In this new video from Bloomberg Business, you can check out the rest of what went down at one of the world's swankiest drone racing competitions.

The event, hosted by the World Organization of Racing Drones, took place at night. Teams monitored their drones' stats during the race with VR headsets, which fed video from the front of each of their drones.

The 12-lap race included a number of different obstacles that each drone had to navigate, with the goal being to accumulate as few penalties as possible while still maintaining a fast speed. One of the coolest elements of the race was crazy looking spine-shaped track which you can watch one of the drones flying on here.

While drone racing continues to gain momentum, we'll keep to wondering about their other applications, like potentially causing a crisis for the Second Amendment.