This Rock(et)s!

From the man who brought you the X-Prize, the next big thing in sports:
The Rocket Racing League:

""It's bringing 21st-century racing into people's personal living rooms. ... It's really the mix of NASCAR excitement and spaceflight," Diamandis told journalists Monday.

Contestants in the Rocket Racing League would not necessarily pass the 62-mile-high (100-kilometer-high) threshold to outer space, but would vie to go the fastest and the highest in the atmosphere. In that regard, the EZ-Rocket — a rocket plane powered by liquid oxygen and isopropyl alcohol that takes off and lands like an airplane — provides a better model than, say, the air-launched SpaceShipOne rocket plane that won the X Prize almost exactly a year ago.

"For me, it's sort of a remembrance of 'Star Wars' pod racing," Diamandis said. "

Oh yeah! But where are they going to get Jedi to pilot the pods? ;)

More info on the Leaguehere, the X-Prize festival here.

(h/t: HWNNL)