The Drone Racing League: identical drones, stadium races and an unclear status.

The Drone Racing League, an organiser, ran its own series, flew every pilot on the same league-built aircraft, and had its races shown on television. This page tells its history from the published record. It is not the Drone Champions League (DCL), a separate team league with its own season of Cups (DCL, 29 December 2025); that league is on Drone Champions League.

Founding and the first season: the dates differ

Fortune (26 January 2016) names Nicholas Horbaczewski as the DRL's founder and chief executive. Sports Illustrated (1 October 2016) says he left Tough Mudder in January 2015. The Ringer (7 September 2018) says he saw his first drone race on Long Island, and that a proof-of-concept race the league held at an abandoned power plant in Yonkers, New York, in the fall of 2015 failed technically. Fortune describes the Yonkers test races as held at an abandoned warehouse.

The accounts of when the league was founded, when it first raced and when its first season began do not match:

One aircraft for every pilot

The Ringer explains that DRL pilots had to fly the league's standard drone, designed under Ryan Gury, so that the racing tested piloting rather than building. It names Racer3 for Season 2 and Racer3S for Season 3, with Racer4 in development for Season 4 in 2018. Wikipedia gives Racer2 for 2016, Racer3 for 2017 and 2018, and Racer4 from 2019. In June 2018 the FCC quoted the DRL's own description of its sport: custom-built quadcopters flown through three-dimensional courses at up to 120 mph by pilots in FPV goggles. That speed is the league's own description.

The RacerX speed record

Guinness World Records (20 July 2017) says the DRL RacerX, built in-house mainly by Ryan Gury and DRL engineers, set the record for the fastest ground speed by a battery-powered remote-controlled quadcopter at 163.5 mph, flown back and forth over a 100 m course in a field in upstate New York. The Ringer (2018) reports a top pace of almost 180 mph. The two are different measures: Guinness's official figure averages the passes, while The Ringer's is a peak. This site uses the Guinness figure. Wikipedia calls the RacerX a former record holder; who holds the record now was not checked.

Television, a simulator and a final abroad

• Sports Illustrated (1 October 2016): the DRL announced a multi-year agreement with ESPN in 2016, and the final nine episodes of its fall 2016 season began airing on ESPN and ESPN2 on 23 October 2016.
• Bard (2016): in early August 2016 the DRL launched a safety website, droneracingsafety.org.
• The Ringer (2018): the DRL simulator was released on Steam in June 2017, and the league held an annual tryout using it. Season 3 began in September 2018, and its championship was held in Saudi Arabia.
• Arab News (16 September 2018): the 2018 championship final took place on 14 September 2018 at King Abdullah Economic City, Saudi Arabia, hosted by the Saudi Federation for Cyber Security, Programming and Drones.

Champions

Wikipedia lists the DRL's season champions as Jordan "Jet" Temkin in 2016 and 2017, Paul "Nurk" Nurkkala in 2018 and Alex Vanover in 2019, with no championship in 2020 because the season was cancelled for COVID-19, and lists no later champions. The Ringer (2018) called Temkin a two-time champion and the only champion to that date. A DRL release, seen only as a search summary because its page could not be opened, named him champion of the 2016 inaugural season and the 2017 "DRL Allianz World Champion"; the year attribution therefore rests partly on that summary.

Search summaries of Miami event listings describe a DRL world championship race called "Miami 3-0-FLY" at loanDepot Park, Miami, on 25 February 2023; no result was read, so that event is unconfirmed. In 2024 The Drone Girl described two of the pilots for a 2025 event as a defending and a two-time DRL World Champion.

The last announced event, and the DRL's status both ways

The last DRL event found is the 2025 DRL U.S. Air Force Miami Invitational, announced for 1 February 2025 at loanDepot Park with 12 pilots and described as the DRL's first major event since its acquisition by Infinite Reality in April 2024 and the first DRL event with the U.S. Air Force as its presenting name (The Drone Girl, 22 October 2024, updated 20 November 2024). DroneLife reported the pilot line-up in November 2024.

What happened next is not settled by any source read for this site:

• Wikipedia (secondary) says the DRL is no longer active, after a planned 2025 event was postponed indefinitely, and that its assets, including Racer4 drones, were auctioned in 2026 as part of a liquidation. The auction listing Wikipedia cites was not read.
• The Drone Girl's 2025 events roundup, last updated 25 June 2025, still listed the Miami Invitational as scheduled and mentioned no postponement.
• No statement from the DRL itself and no news report of the postponement was found.

So this site does not say the DRL is running in 2026, and does not state as fact that it has closed. No DRL season, event or result for 2026 was found. Its current position is on the Drone Racing League.