Rocket Racing League

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.

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.

[2] 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[3] with a burn time of four minutes.

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.

[5][6] 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.

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.

[7] The formation of the league was announced by Granger Whitelaw, and Peter Diamandis, founder of the Ansari X-Prize, in October 2005[8] in partnership with the Reno Air Races.

"[citation needed] 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.

[8] 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.

[2] 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.

Plume-seeding technology allowed the plume color to vary from red to green to yellow to better facilitate race spectators in keeping track of specific racers while in the air.

The Mark-III (N133XP) airframe was modified during manufacturing at Velocity Aircraft explicitly for use as a Rocket Racer, with canopy top, center seat and control stick, and other enhancements.

[22] The Mark-V proposed design resembles "a sleek, rocket-powered sailplane" and may be built at Velocity Aircraft, although no firm contracts are in place to do so as of November 2011[update].