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Airspeeder’s EXA Series Championship sees Zephatali Walsh claim top spot in world’s first race between three eVTOL racing craft

Zephatali Walsh emerged vic­to­ri­ous in the 2023 Air­speed­er EXA Series Cham­pi­onship, in a race which was a world’s first between three eVTOL rac­ing craft.

Walsh, along­side Bruno Sen­na and Lex­ie Jan­son, took to the skies in Alau­da Aero­nau­tics Mk3s for the inau­gur­al three-speed­er race at Stone­field Air­field in South Aus­tralia — which was attend­ed by more than 100 spec­ta­tors despite the adverse weath­er con­di­tions.

This race fol­lowed a thrilling dou­ble win for Walsh in 2022 in the first and sec­ond eVTOL EXA Cir­cuit Races in South Aus­tralia. The EXA Series remote­ly pilot­ed races served as a pre­view of the future, with rapid bat­tery-swap pit­stops and strate­gic com­pe­ti­tion set­ting the stage for the ful­ly crewed Air­speed­er Grand Prixs start­ing in 2024.

The race pro­vid­ed valu­able insights for Alau­da Aero­nau­tics and excit­ing moments in the wind and rain, with Walsh set­ting impres­sive lap times, includ­ing a remark­able 0:13.857 in the sec­ond lap of Race 2. Despite chal­lenges, Bruno Sen­na demon­strat­ed resilience, and Lex­ie Jan­son faced a tough bat­tle, show­cas­ing the unpre­dictabil­i­ty of fly­ing car rac­ing.

The lat­est race show­cased cut­ting-edge tech­nol­o­gy, fea­tur­ing inno­v­a­tive onboard cam­eras from EMG that streamed 1080i live footage from all Speed­ers via RF. This marked a sig­nif­i­cant leap for­ward in race broad­cast­ing, set­ting a new stan­dard for immer­sive expe­ri­ences.

The event was also record­ed as a live broad­cast, with the NEP Group spear­head­ing the ini­tia­tive, turn­ing the race into a dynam­ic test­bed for future race broad­casts.

The suc­cess of the event was made pos­si­ble through the sup­port of the South Aus­tralia gov­ern­ment, Intel, Acro­nis, IWC, Salt­wa­ter Games, and Tel­stra Pur­ple. Their com­mit­ment to push­ing the bound­aries of inno­va­tion and sup­port­ing the evo­lu­tion of fly­ing car rac­ing con­tributed sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the suc­cess of the three-speed­er race.

Alau­da Aero­nau­tics has forged a tech­ni­cal ecosys­tem for eVTOL rac­ing. The 4.1‑meter fly­ing rac­ing car, a car­bon fibre con­struc­tion full-scale rac­ing quad­copter, achieves a top speed of 100 km/h and accel­er­a­tion from 0–62mph in 2.8 sec­onds.

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Jason Pritchard

Jason Pritchard is the Editor of eVTOL Insights. He holds a BA from Leicester's De Montfort University and has worked in Journalism and Public Relations for more than a decade. Outside of work, Jason enjoys playing and watching football and golf. He also has a keen interest in Ancient Egypt.

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