X-racers take a tight turn during a hotly contested race in this artist's conception. (File Photo) Photo Gallery>>>

    BEIJING, April 15 (Xinhuanet) -- The Rocket Racing League, a long-promised attempt to create a high-flying version of Nascar with rockets, said it will stage its first-ever public exhibition races this year, according to media reports Tuesday.

    The flights will take place Aug. 1 and Aug. 2 in Oshkosh, Wis. at the annual Experimental Aircraft Association air show, Granger Whitelaw, Rocket Racing League CEO, said Monday during a press briefing in New York at the Yale Club.

    Racers in rocket-powered aircraft will fly four laps around a five-mile "track" at anywhere from 150 feet(45.72 meters) to 1,500 feet (457.2 meters) above the ground. The planes, designed to fly at 340 miles meters (547,177) an hour, will start side by side, two at a time.

    In the races, pilots will view the sky racecourse on 3-D helmet displays, while the roughly 700,000 people expected to attend will watch the action on multiple 50-foot (15-meter) projection screens.

    "We're using 21st century technology to create a 21st-century sport for 21st-century people," Whitelaw said.

    The league currently has six teams that will compete in four series of races throughout the year.

    Competition should begin in 2009, the founders said.

    The Rocket Racing League was founded in 2005 by Ansari X Prize founder Peter Diamandis and Whitelaw, an Indianapolis 500 veteran. The competitors will pilot Mark 1 X-Racer rockets based on the EZ-Rocket design developed by the firm XCOR Aerospace in Mojave, Calif.

    (Agencies)