Wow, it's almost like we're living in the 21st century...
 

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The Rocket Racing League is a proposed racing league that would use rocket powered aircraft. The formation of the league was announced by Granger Whitelaw two time Indy 500 winning team owner and Peter Diamandis, founder of the Ansari X-Prize, on October 3, 2005, in partnership with the Reno Air Races. According to Diamandis, the purpose of the league is to "inspire people of all ages to once again look up into the sky and find inspiration and excitement."

Projected to be an hour and one half in length, the races would be between proposed Rocket Racer planes that use liquid oxygen and either kerosene or ethanol fuel[1] with a burn time of four minutes. The rocketplanes are expected to cost less than US$1 million each. The planes are based on the a fixed-gear Velocity SE modified by XCOR Aerospace and the retractible gear Velocity XL modified by Armadillo Aerospace for the purpose of rocket racing. The Velocity airframe is derived from a commercially-available kit plane that traces its design heritage to the Rutan Long-EZ, which has been modified to accept rocket power and custom avionics. In order to provide the airframes, RRL has purchased the aircraft's manufacturer, Velocity Aircraft.[2] The first prototype flew on October 26, 2007 at the Mojave Spaceport.

The RRL has been called "NASCAR with rockets", and draws heavily on experience from the car racing world. RRL CEO Granger Whitelaw is a venture capitalist and former Indy Racing League team owner. The Rocket Racer flew for a public audience at the 2008 EAA AirVenture Airshow at Oshkosh, Wisconsin.[3][4] If league competition begins, Whitelaw indicated tournament semifinals would be held each September in Nevada, with finals each October in New Mexico at the X Prize Cup competing for a $2 million championship purse.

Races would take place on a race course two miles long, one mile wide, and 1500 feet in the air. A typical race would take about one hour, and fans would be able to see multiple camera views, including cockpit, "on-track," "side-by-side" and wing-angle views.

Additionally, a computer game is planned which will interface with racer position data in real time over the internet, allowing players to virtually compete with the rocket pilots.

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" one day I hope all kids will look at my red rocket..." said Granger Whitelaw