Rocket Racing League Ready To Launch

capnkr sends us to Wired for the story of the long-delayed Rocket Racing League, which we discussed when it launched in 2005. It seems the league is finally ready to get off the ground. At a press conference at the Yale Club in New York, RRL CEO Granger Whitelaw said rocket-powered planes will fly their first exhibition race in August at the EAA AirVenture air show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, with at least three more races to follow in 2008. "The Rocket Racing League on Monday detailed plans to move from a sci-fi fantasy to a full-fledged commercial enterprise — including 'vertical drag races' using rockets."

The rules

[Anonymous Coward]

First one back to the ground wins!

*groan*

[The Ancients]

It seems the league is finally ready to get off the ground.

That was really, really, bad. Even for a /. summary.

Re:mamma

[Anonymous Coward]

I second that, little jewel jankins. And on that statement, I'm off to bed. Someone better suck me off tonight, and it fuck as well should be sloppy. where's mah hooch?

Re:Experimental aviation

[Creepy Crawler]

I'll assume that the DIY aircraft kit also has a DIY hospital kit too..

Today's lesson: Howto build a self anesthesia surgery setup

Tomorrow: Self post-op care

I'm to be proven wrong again, I'm sure

[BadAnalogyGuy]

I've been wrong about this type of stuff before. A few years ago before LOTR was released, I made the assertion that only geeks would be interested in a movie about D&D characters. I predicted that for all the eye candy, the story wouldn't resonate with the average movie audience and that a lot of money was being spent on creating a huge movie with a small target audience.

Well, looking back on it now, I can say that I was totally wrong. Plenty of people are fascinated by pewter goblets and 20-sided dice. I never would have thought it, but apparently there is a very large underground geek community that is latent. It takes something like LOTR to bring them out, but when they are out, they bring with them tons of cash.

So I'm just going to go ahead and call this "NASCAR" of the skies a total flop. It's not interesting for anyone except geeks and only a small subset of geeks at that.

In two or three years when this rocket racing takes over the international sporting world, I'm prepared to eat my words.

Re:Experimental aviation

[somersault]

people build planes in all sorts of places and sometimes have to knock out walls to get them out

I for one would certainly feel safe in a vehicle built and flown by someone who didn't realise that an airplane is generally bigger than a doorway ;)