Podracing, it’s Tatooine’s favourite sport, weaving through the treacherous Boonta Eve course at speeds of up to 600mph while dodging ruthless opponents, angry Tusken Raiders and more and StarWars.com take a look at this legendary, largely banned, sport known throughout the galaxy in their latest Inside Intel.
The objective is simple — win the race. Course markers line tracks like the Boonta Eve arena, signaling to a podracer’s navigational system the route to follow. A racer wins after completing three laps around the course, and crossing the finish line first. But what makes podracing exciting is the danger of it all, which is why it’s a mostly outlawed sport within the Republic (and later, the Empire, all the way to the New Republic), but thriving in the Outer Rim. Although there are rules and regulations, they’re treated more as guidelines. Officials and referees exist but even they are easily bribed, threatened, or distracted by pilots and their crews to circumvent the “guidelines” they’re intended to enforce.
Galactic history explains that podracing was inspired by a more primitive version of the sport where carriages were drawn by creatures, who would race around a track for glory. This sport transformed into the dangerous, high-speed competition seen in The Phantom Menace after a mechanic called Phoebos applied the same arrangement of carriage and creature to modern technology, replacing the carriage with a pod and the creatures with engines, and using repulsorlift technology so the vehicle could hover.
