Following months of intense competition among thousands of pilots from 65 countries, The Drone Racing League (DRL) announced Christopher “Phluxy” Spangler as the winner of the 2019 Swatch DRL Tryouts. The DRL, in partnership with Swatch, holds drone racing competitions yearly and Spangler was chosen from 210 contestants who gathered to compete in the finalist round in Las Vegas this past weekend.
The Swatch DRL Tryouts is the only e-sports competition that turns gamers, many of whom practice for hours a day, into professional drone pilots overnight. The technology the players use, a realistic drone racing sim called theDRL Simulator, allows players to fly First Person View (FPV) better and play more competitively.
Spangler, a twenty-eight year old gamer from Bloomington Minnesota and previous contestant, won first place after racing over a city bridge on the Swatch map during the heated Semi-Finals round in Vegas. The Drone Racing champion will now go on to race in the 2019 DRL Allianz World Championship Season, competing internationally for millions of viewers, as part of a contract awarding him $75,000.
