The Rocket Racing League was a racing league that planned to use rocket-powered aircraft to race a closed-circuit air racetrack. Founded in 2005, the league made its first public flights in 2010 and was working to begin regular racing seasons. The "Rocket Racers" were slated to compete in the air and on a virtual racetrack easily viewed by a live audience as well as projected on large screen and handheld electronic displays. Three prototype canard-style Rocket Racer aircraft were built between 2006 and 2010. The league had planned to hold its inaugural race season in 2008 with four races, but encountered financial difficulties that delayed fielding of Rocket Racers by the six teams that had been previously announced. With the addition of venture capital funding in mid-2009, technology development continued and one exhibition occurred in 2010, with another round of plans for an inaugural season of races in 2011. The 2011 races were never scheduled and the league was defunct by 2014.
Background Projected to be an hour and one half in length, the races were intended to be between Rocket Racer planes that used liquid oxygen and either kerosene or ethanol fuel with a burn time of four minutes. The rocketplanes were expected to cost less than US$1 million each. The planes were based on the 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 was derived from a commercially available kit plane that traced its design heritage to the Rutan Long-EZ, which had been modified to accept rocket power and custom avionics. In order to provide the airframes, RRL purchased the aircraft's manufacturer, Velocity Aircraft, in April 2008.
The RRL had been called "NASCAR with rockets", XCOR Aerospace flew the Rocket Racer for a public audience at the 2008 EAA AirVenture Airshow at Oshkosh, Wisconsin. If league competition were to begin, 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 were to have taken place on a race course two miles (3 km) long, one mile (1.6 km) wide, and 1,500 feet (460 m) 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 had been planned which was to have interfaced with racer positional data in real time over the internet, allowing players to virtually compete with the rocket pilots.
The Track The proposed "track" for a typical Rocket Race was to have begun with a staggered start. Pilots were to take off in pairs a few minutes apart, they would be competing against the clock but would maneuver around each other much like NASCAR. The pilots would be guided by a virtual three-dimensional "track" projected in their head-up display. Each racer was to have a separate track to follow but the courses were planned to be close together to build excitement.
Teams As of 2008, there were six teams registered to compete in the inaugural 2008 race season, Rocket Star Racing, Team Extreme Rocket Racing, Canada-based Beyond Gravity Rocket Racing, Bridenstine Rocket Racing, Santa Fe Racing and Thunderhawk Rocket Racing. As of 2012, RRL claimed that "official team recruitment will commence as the production-level Rocket Racers near completion", listing five "candidate teams of the RRL franchise": Bridenstine Rocket Racing, Santa Fe Racing, Rocket Star Racing, Team Extreme Rocket Racing, and Canada-based Beyond Gravity Rocket Racing.
History The formation of the league was announced by Granger Whitelaw, and Peter Diamandis, founder of the Ansari X-Prize, in October 2005 in partnership with the Reno Air Races. According to Diamandis, the purpose of the league was to "inspire people of all ages to once again look up into the sky and find inspiration and excitement." Initial plans called for a four-team league finals in 2006, to be followed by 10 teams competing in 2007, with video games based on the competition also out in 2007. In 2006, analysts identified doubts about the economics of the venture, and especially of the ability of RRL to attract a large fanbase similar to IndyCar and NASCAR. In the event, no races occurred in either 2006 or 2007. In April 2008, the league stated that it was "ready for competition [announcing] four exhibition races will be held later [in the] year, one in Las Cruces." On April 14, 2008, the Racing Rocket Racing Composite Corporation, a subsidiary of the Rocket Racing League, acquired Velocity Aircraft. The RRL announced their goal was to "produce an airframe that will be consistent for all competing Rocket Racers." On May 26, 2010, a Velocity employee posted to the builder's email-list a note from Scott and Duane Swing that stated that they had bought back full ownership of Velocity Inc from Rocket Racing League. The RRL now owns no share of Velocity Inc.
League financial difficulties None of the four planned 2008 races were actually run. The Rocket Racing League had difficulty in attracting and retaining sufficient financial backing, from both investors and sponsors, in order to get an initial racing season firmly scheduled in 2008, 2009, or 2010. Some progress with the rocket and aircraft technology continued however, but by 2014, the league had gone defunct. The league twice failed to complete construction of six hangars contracted to be built on land adjacent to Spaceport America near Las Cruces, New Mexico. As of January 2009, the league was at risk of having their leases with the City of Las Cruces terminated. In July 2009, the league announced the closing of a venture capital financing round of US$5.5 million. The funds were to be used for ongoing operations and for the development of a next-generation Rocket Racer.
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