Drone racing is an emerging new sport that pits multiple drone pilots against each other in timed heats around a set course of obstacles, the winner being the fastest or the last one in the air.
This sport became a reality through a culmination of technology becoming cheaper and smaller. The drones themselves are built from light weight carbon fiber, a propulsion system, flight controller, digital receiver, and a first person view system. The other piece is the ground station, which is a transmitter for controlling the drone and a pair of video goggles to fly as if you were inside the drone. This experience is akin to flying like a bird or piloting a Star Wars Pod-Racer.
There are several companies working hard to get the sport into main stream entertainment. One of the most successful is the Drone Racing League (DRL) who has partnered with ESPN to produce high quality content for their viewers. It is currently in its 3rd season. The only problem being that an ESPN cable subscription is required to watch. DRL
Another company called MULTI-GP are more focused on enabling communities to set up and host drone racing events. These take place all across the US and the rest of the world. By standardizing race tracks and race classes people can now compete on a global level. Unfortunately these drone races are not the most viewer friendly.
Going to the local drone race is much like going to any local sporting event where there is long stretches of down time followed by a 2 min race. The down time depends on how many other people are competing at the event. Once it is your heat you need to be ready to go. This means you have a charged battery on your drone (not plugged in!), and your video transmitter (for your FPV system) is on the correct channel. The transmitter channel is a critical configuration for your drone as it must match the one your goggles are receiving and it cannot be one that another drone racer is using. This is because if two pilots are on the same frequency the pilot flying will be unable to see the video feed from their drone as yours (being closer) will over power their signal. Below is a few pictures of me at a local drone race in the bay area a few months back.
This is why Transmitter frequency is strictly regulated at Drone Racing events so people not racing at that time do not cause a pilot to crash. The reason the video feeds are so sensitive to interference is because they are not digital but analog transmitters. So why not just use digital? well the problem with digital is latency or lag, this is the time difference between what is actually happening on the drone and what your eyes see. A digital system require encoding before transmission as the raw signal would require a very large bandwidth, and to create a system capable of the imperceptible real time requirements is quite costly and heavy
There are a multitude of cheap drone racing systems that can get you flying right away but because of the intense speed, close proximity to the ground, and the guarantee of a crash, most dedicated and professional drone pilots build their own rig. This building aspect is an integral piece of drone racing, as most of your time spent will be building and repairing your drones as you practice, compete, and get better.
If you are at all interested in drone racing the first thing that you can do is download and run a simulator. The DRL drone racing simulator can be installed using Steam and can be played with a variety of controllers. The sim can be used as a practice tool but your real drone will not be a one to one comparison. There is no reset in real life! More information about the simulator can be found here: DRL Simulator
Therefor getting comfortable with your drone is key. Set up a practice course or just fly around the park to get a better feel for how your particular done feels before heading to a race.
