The Rocket Racing League Will Fly in August

Way back in October of 2005 I had a piece on a proposed rocket racing league - NASCAR on steroids. It's taken awhile to get organized, but the league is supposed to hold an exhibition race this summer at the big EAA Show in Oshkosh, WI:

NEW YORK — Rocket mavens, mark your calendars: The date of the first Rocket Racing League race has been set.

On Aug. 1-2, the league will stage a high-flying version of NASCAR with rockets at the EAA AirVenture air show in Oshkosh, Wis., in its first-ever exhibition race.

Two racers will fly planes powered by rocket engines on a 2-lap circuit around an airborne raceway.

Pilots in the races will view the sky racecourse on 3-D helmet displays, while the roughly 700,000 people expected to attend will watch the action on multiple 50-foot (15-meter) projection screens.

"We're using 21st century technology to create a 21st-century sport for 21st-century people," said Granger Whitelaw, Rocket Racing League CEO, during a press briefing here at the Yale Club. "We're very excited about announcing our first public exhibition race." ...

The league currently has six teams that will compete in four series of races throughout the year. After the first EAA AirVenture exhibition, later races will be staged at the Reno National Championship Air Races in Reno, Nev., between Sept. 10-14; at Aviation Nation at Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas, Nev., on Nov. 8-9, and at the X Prize Cup in Las Cruces, N.M., in late October.

The initial racer design was powered by XCOR's liquid-oxygen and kerosene rocket engine, though Whitelaw announced Monday that a second engine type, fueled by liquid-oxygen and ethanol, will also be available.

Mesquite, Tex.-based Armadillo Aerospace, founded by computer game-developer John Carmack, will build the new engines, which can be stopped and restarted.
Since the engines burn liquid oxygen and ethanol, the company added a salt-water solution to the fuel to produce a bright yellow glow from the racers.

"We're building a robust set of technologies together that should be safe for the pilot, cost effective, and spectacular for the crowds," Carmack said via a video link.

That is going to be way cool. And more than a little dangerous - there aren't any "soft walls" where these guys will be flying.