It's much more than pylon racing. Its a one man at a time, against the clock circuit in aerobatic aircraft (e.g. Extra300) with aerobatics thrown in. The circuit isn't oval and the manoeuvres are spectacular. The footage I saw was shot from the air, water and within the cockpit of the competing aircraft. The reason that the pylons are inflatable fabric, is that the planes actually pass between the pylons at obscenely low level, often knife edged and occasionally they hit the pylons (without loss of control of the aircraft). Here's a bit of it on
you tube