Drone Night Racing Puts New Spin on Growing Underground Sport

A long-exposure photo of one of David Moquay’s drone night racing tracks, displaying what racer Douglas Andriuk calls “bent lightsabers.” Picture jumping behind the wheel of an agile, quick aircraft and competing on a tricky but illuminated race track after night has fallen. It sounds like something out of a Star Wars flick, but it’s actually an Arizona artist’s twist on the underground but burgeoning world of first-person-view, or FPV, drone racing. As the dry Arizona days turned sweltering last summer, David Moquay began to experiment with constructing illuminated tracks so that his small FPV group could race during the cooler nighttime hours. A new and visually-striking challenge for drone racers, Moquay’s tracks provide a spectacular light show for spectators and deeply visceral experience for pilots. Experimenting With the Track Moquay, an artist with a background in film post-production, has been experimenting with designing courses for drone night racing for ...