Drivers, start your drones: 'First-person view' drone racing is the surreal thing

Bapu Madhu used to fly model airplanes. Until it got boring.

“It’s very mellow. You don’t take risks,” said Madhu, 36, who lives in Hemet. “I mean, what’s the fun in that?”

So when he heard about the exploding sport of FPV or “first-person view” drone racing, he leaped at the opportunity to give it a whirl.

“These are way more complicated to fly,” Madhu said.

On a sweltering Saturday in a park hugging the Santau2009Ana River, the weekend drone warrior who holds down a job as a county auditor during the week was honing his goggle-aided navigation skills on a makeshift course.

He and two friends who started the Riversideu2009Elite racing club had set up the course at Martha McLean-Anza Narrows Park. Then for more than two hours they raced 7-inch-wide quadcopters that whined like angry bees as they zigzagged around sycamore trees and zipped through a cherry-red hoop called a “gate.”

It’s a scene that’s being replayed across Southe Califoia, as the sport gains altitude and drone-race clubs organize.

Surreal

On weekends in Long Beach, for example, there’s a good chance you’ll spot 33-year-old Ben Saraceno practicing with fellow SoCalu2009Rotor Racing members at Elu2009Dorado Park.

And on weekday nights in Yorba Linda, you might find 22-year-old Coell Herg of Irvine piloting an LED-illuminated drone through a parking garage’s dark canyons with fellow members of the Orangeu2009County Flyers Club.

Herg is the club’s event organizer. He’s also chief executive officer for Droneflux.com, an online, multiple-vendor store for drone parts. “Think Amazon,” he said.

As for Saraceno, it would seem he was destined to become a drone racer. His father ran a hobby shop, and he grew up around remote-controlled cars, boats, planes, tanks and submarines.

But Saraceno said it’s easy for anyone to get hooked on the sport.

“There’s no way to describe it, other than surreal,” he said in a phone interview. “I always encourage people to take a look behind the goggles. That’s when it clicks with people.”

Video gamer

It’s no surprise the sport is a magnet for the milleial crowd. The target market: techie, video-gaming, virtual thrill seekers.

“Once you’re in the air, it is very much like a video game,” Herg said.

Pilots direct their screaming flying machines with two-lever controls that look like video game consoles and track their drones’ progress with virtual-reality-like headsets. The “goggles” receive video feeds from tiny cameras fitted on the front of drones.

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Herg said there is also an engineering component; racers design and build their own custom drones.

Adrenaline rush

Michael Gianoutsos, chief marketing officer for the Florida-based MultiGP Drone Racing League that has sanctioned 300u2009racing chapters across the nation, including several in Southe Califoia, said drone racing is irresistible because it is challenging on several fronts.

“It’s one of those activities where you use your whole brain,” Gianoutsos said. “There’s a very technical, mathematical side. Then there’s the racing side, where you have that adrenaline rush. Then there’s the creative side.”

The adrenaline is triggered not just by the sheer speed — drones can reach 80u2009mph — but also by the nerve-wracking intensity of navigating twisting tus, rising towers and numerous obstacles or gates.

Money, too

“Guys will race around bridges and around trees and around statues,” Gianoutsos said. “It’s more like motocross racing than drag racing per se.”

“And, hey, some of these races now have some money attached to them if you win,” he said.

He noted the world championships hosted by Dubai in March boasted a stuing $1u2009million purse. The magnitude of that particular purse hit home.

Beauty contest

A leading designer in the fledgling sport is Francis Marasigan, 37, of Eastvale who works as a software architect and is one of Riversideu2009Elite’s founders.

Picking up one of Marasigan’s drones, friend and fellow group member Brian Grass, 32, called attention to its “clean,” smooth surface with no exposed wires despite an abundance of electronics.

“If you look at his, it’s very aesthetically pleasing,” said Grass, who lives in Murrieta.

The judges at World Drone Prix in Dubai agreed. They named Marasigan wier of the Constructor Award for best design and awarded him a $100,000 prize.

Marasigan brushed it off when friends brought it up during the practice at the Riverside park.

“My motto is, if you can’t beat them at racing, beat them in the beauty contest,” he said.

Mid-air collisions

But racing ultimately is what it’s all about.

Audiences and pilots alike love speed. And with drones reaching 80u2009mph, virtual-reality goggles aren’t just a cool accessory but an indispensable tool.

“If you have any distractions, you’ll crash,” Grass said. “When you have the goggles on, you can tune everything else out.”

Still, there’s a downside. “You lose a lot of your peripheral vision,” Saraceno said.

Need for speed

Even with the goggles, he said, midair collisions are common. Saraceno should know. A crash at the Italy Drone Nationals in July ended a promising race.

“Man, I had such a big lead and I blew it,” he said. “I was out to a half a lap lead. For whatever reason I thought I needed to go faster.”

Saraceno said he was determined to be more disciplined over the weekend at the 2016u2009U.S. National Drone Racing Championships at New York’s Goveors Island.

“We’re going to try to come back with a trophy — another one,” he said.

At the 2015u2009national championship in Sacramento, Saraceno placed third.

Ridiculous

Wiing races is getting tougher, though. The competition is getting fiercer, Saraceno said. And the custom-made drones are getting more sophisticated.

From one year to the next, he said, “It’s like looking at an Impala versus a Porsche. It is really crazy to see how fast the sport is progressing.”

So there’s no telling where the sport will go next, Herg said.

“With drones, don’t be afraid when you hear something ridiculous,” he said, “because it just might happen.”