Rockets To Race Over Wisconsin Skies

Iron Condor writes with a reminder that that the first race of the Rocket Racing League (last mentioned here in April, after its 2005 founding) is set to take place later this month at Oshkosh AirVenture 08. This race, says Iron Condor, "is exactly what it sounds like: NASCAR 1000m above ground in rocket-propelled airplanes. Created by X-prize founder/CEO Peter Diamandis, this is 'the next evolution of racing' (at least according to the promo video, which is definitely worth watching)..."

Doh!

I just moved from Wisconsin. Who knew there was a reason to stay,

Re:

The cheese man. It is all the reason you need.

Re:Doh!

Speaking as a European, I have, and really no offence, found US cheese to range from bland for the better stuff, to disgusting for the most mass-market ranges. And the thing you call processed cheese is beyond description all together. I'm sorry, I really am - the people of the USA have contributed to culture and science in many, many ways - but your cheese is the foulest thing that anyone has ever had the gaul to pass off as food. I tried pretty much all of it until I found somewhere that imported proper English cheddar which I bought with great relief.

I guess it's just one of those things.

Re:Doh!

your cheese is the foulest thing that anyone has ever had the gaul to pass off as food.

You obviously haven't tried our beer.

Re:Doh!

Most of the general cheeses are pretty bland stuff. However, you should go into a grocey store in Wisconsin and look in the "specialty cheeses" section, and you will find a wide selection of cheeses that routinely win international competitions.

That being said, they still tend to cede the whole area of "stinky cheeses" to the french.

And I have lived in Europe and Wisconsin and enjoy (and pay for) good cheese. I am living in California now, and miss the cheese.

Oh yeah!!!

Rednecks racing rocket's 'round a ringed raceway! Radically refreshing!

Re:

Hey now, we're not rednecks. We're Cheeseheads. Get it right.

Re:Oh yeah!!!

Anyhow, they said it was just like NASCAR, so I figured the spectators would be rednecks.

Yeah, when I saw "like NASCAR 1000m in the air", I was all, "oh great... ANOTHER NASCAR."

Seriously, anyone who watches real racecar driving on circuits internationally just shivers when you suggest "NASCAR", because it's boring to watch. "Go fast, turn left," I've heard it described as. And then, Indy and Champcar spun off of F1, to go around in ovals...

I remember playing a Indy race car simulator game back on the Apple ][e (yeah, old school racing sim!) and now I'm surprised looking back on it... the tires on the right-side are larger than the ones on the left... why? To help you turn left better... because SURPRISE! They're only going left!

Compared to GT racing, F1 racing, and hell, even freaking Autocross ("put up cones; instant track! can I drive my civic?") are way cooler and more interesting to watch than a bunch of dumb americans chasing their tail all day long.

Re:Oh yeah!!!

I'll take the bait. I'm not a huge NASCAR fan, but my roommate is. "How can an otherwise intelligent young man get so much enjoyment out of such a crappy sport?" is what I asked myself. Part of it was certainly his upbringing - his dad was a huge fan. But you know what? Under the surface, it's actually pretty interesting.

The issue is that it's kind of like golf, only the people who tend to watch it are larger, rowdier and smellier. Golf is pretty boring to watch, too, unless you have an eye for the subtleties of a good shot or an appreciation for the difficulty of a particular putt.

If you're watching mostly the track and seeing the cars go 'round to the left, you're going to be bored as hell. If you focus on an individual driver, and watch how he catches a draft off of a passing rival, and you understand that drafting will make both cars go faster (though the guy in front is at full throttle and the guy in back only half), the dynamics of the race become more interesting. In fact, I find the most entertaining part of the race to be how drivers play with the airstream (well, except for the crashes, of course).

I'm not a fan of Nascar by any stretch of the imagination and will never go out of my way to catch a race. If people are watching one where I am, though, I don't have to play the elitist asshole anymore because I understand that the game has some merits.

I agree that F1 is more interesting. Autocross not so much. And don't even get me started on drag racing.

Re:Oh yeah!!!

Brave man? That comment was posted by "snowgirl".

On teh intertubes the women are men, and the girls are FBI agents.

this reminds me of something...

"Now *that's* what I call *pod-racing*!"

Now all we need is some Sand People to shoot at the racers, and we're all set!

Re:this reminds me of something...

Now all we need is some Sand People to shoot at the racers, and we're all set!

So you're saying they need a tribe of people with language of unintelligible guttural noises that are both heavily armed and perpetually dressed in baggy, concealing clothing? Sounds like Wisconsin to me.

Wow.

Amazing how they can make giant glowing polygons float in the sky for the planes to fly through.

It was only a matter of time

.... before Wile E Coyote (Super Genius) merged with NASCAR.

I predict similar spectacular failures to occur, and I think I will enjoy it just as much as I used to do when I was five years old :)

If it's NASCAR but 1000m off the ground...

...does that include NASCAR's amazing ability to make something that should be fantastically awesome in theory and make it something incredibly boring in practice?

Fuel?

Uhhh... does anyone care about the massive waste of rocket fuel that this is? I mean, that's the number one reason I hate NASCAR. It's just downright wasteful. We could be using that gas, instead of burning it to drive in a circle 500 times.

This whole auto-racing thing is an artifact of a world where energy is plentiful and can be freely squandered.

Re:Fuel?

Uhhh... does anyone care about the massive waste of rocket fuel that this is? I mean, that's the number one reason I hate NASCAR. It's just downright wasteful. We could be using that gas, instead of burning it to drive in a circle 500 times.

This whole auto-racing thing is an artifact of a world where energy is plentiful and can be freely squandered.

What do you figure the energy costs are to to run an indoor football/soccer/basketball stadium? Or an NHL hockey rink? remember, these all have to be maintained 24x7.

Not to mention all the fuel used flying all those people back and forth across the globe just so they can kick a ball around or hit a puck with a stick?

At least there is some technology feedback from auto racing back into 'real cars'.

What would be the return on investment in the energy cost of hockey? baseball? football?

How confident are you that NASCAR is actually the most energy wasteful sport going?

Re:Fuel?

This whole auto-racing thing is an artifact of a world where energy is plentiful and can be freely squandered.

Well said! I completely agree. It's time we move on to a world where it's cool to be efficient and conserve energy rather than blow it out the exhaust pipe as fast as possible.

Re:Fuel?

I look forward to the day when the US starts importing yogis from India in order to compete in Olympic Energy Conservation.

"Radhakrishnan's got his heart down to 4 beats per minute... 3... but OH! Gupta has tapped the core of his seventh chakra, and he's coming in with 2.. 1... ZERO BEATS PER MINUTE! This is unbelivable - this is the first time ANYONE has achieved complete body stasis in a competition setting! Now, remember folks, according to IOC rules, he has two minutes to re-awaken and establish the validity of the record, or else paramedics will be deployed to the field with a defibrillator..."

Re:Fuel?

Go away, hippie.

Re:Finally. . .

To use the Answers.com definition of a rocket, which is pretty much what I think of when I hear the word rocket:

A reaction engine that contains all the substances necessary for its operation and is not dependent on substances such as atmospheric oxygen, drawn from the surrounding medium, and thus is capable of operating in outer space. Also called rocket motor.

If the engines of these vehicles are drawing in air from their surroundings, they're not using rockets, they're using jet engines.

Re:Finally. . .

I know what defines a rocket, and I didn't see any noticeable air intakes on the planes in the pictures, that's why I asked.

Having looked a little closer [rocketracingleague.com] it seems that they're burning kerosene and carrying liquid oxygen as an oxidiser, so they really are rockets, not jets.

Re:Finally. . .

Armadillo Aerospace is providing the RRL with rockets for their planes, so yes, they are rockets. http://armadilloaerospace.com/n.x/Armadillo/Home/News?news_id=358 [armadilloaerospace.com]

Depends on how this works

If it's NASCAR-style, then it'll appeal to some folks but it just won't have the kind of hold that other racing leagues get. Formula 1 gets serious money, and world-class rally racing is just that - world-wide, with an audience few sports can compete with. These two are descendants of the old European city-to-city races, where racers where gentlemen first. NASCAR is descended from bootlegger contests where winning was more important than how.

Rocket racing really needs to take the same road as the old-style European racing leagues, perhaps even taking that kind of idealistic "it's not the winning that counts" attitude even further. Anyone can make a fast rocket, but does it have style? Is it fast out of brute-force or because the design is the coolest hack ever? Award points for place, yes, but also for style. Why encourage crap designs and crap driving?

Re:One word: smoke

The other planes will only be tiny specks somewhere in the distance.

Three words: Reno Air Races. Hotrodded WW2 fighters and some jets, 500+ mph, 10-mile course with the front straight a few hundred yards from the bleachers.

Also, do you know how far the safety distance is behind a commercial plane? That's miles of airspace that can't be used due to turbulence in the plane's wake. Now imagine what the wake of a rocket plane is like!

You mean like this? http://www.airrace.org/2007ncargallery.php [airrace.org] Wake turbulence depends almost entirely on weight, not airspeed.

hugely wasteful kind of sport

You're talking about a sport where a few dozen airplanes perform in front of fifty thousand people who got there in cars, right?

rj