One of the world’s newest sports has its first champion. The winner of the inaugural US national drone racing championship was crowned at the California State Fair in Sacramento on July 17. Although it was a US competition, the nationals were won by an Australian, Chad Nowak. But that’s ok.
Although there weren’t many fans in the stands—to be fair, it was over 100 degrees during most of the two-day event—organizer Scot Refsland said over 1,000 people tuned in to the livestream at any given point, with fans tuning in from over 126 countries. And he predicts larger crowds next time round as the sport grows.
Nowak seemed more interested in hanging out with his drone racing friends than legions of fans, telling Quartz: “It was just a bunch of nerds having fun.”