hokay, here it goes. As the subject heading suggests, this is just a draft. By all means, please comment, kibitz, and heckle to your heart's content.
What I have here is just a basic rundown of the history of the sport, so I'm looking to expand by adding teams, different racing leagues, racing events,
and venues. Thus, any input from the peanut gallery is welcome.
Asteroid Racing
Even the BNF Asteroid Racers themselves are not sure who the first racer
was. This mysterious figure is said to appear in the middle of races, never at the start nor the finish. It is said that the Phantom Racer is a quirk of Handwavium - that some adventurous soul handwaviumized a high-performance car and
together they race through the asteroid belt for all eternity.
That said, it was appearances of the Phantom Racer that led to the start of competitive
asteroid racing as we know it today. Aside from the Phantom Racer, one of the first ones were Benjamin Rhodes and
KJ. As they raced together, they began to catch the attention of other skilled pilots who joined them in their
races.
At first, it started as informal gatherings where an unspoken set of rules bound them in
trust. The vehicles were varied, but ran along a certain theme: a small and highly maneuverable fen-spacecraft with an
AI running the avionics and navigation systems.
Word began to spread and others began to show up, most of them with no friggin' clue
of what they were doing - they became the first casualties and led to the drafting of the Charter of the Asteroid Racers, hence why all Asteroid Racers
proclaim their laws to be written in blood.
More people began to join in on the fun and developing traditions of Asteroid Racing,
and so the sport began to grow more and more organized. It was not long until corporations, both in orbit and dirtside,
began to hear about the craze and sought to stake their claim on the sport.
And thus, Asteroid Racing exploded into the sports scene on Earth and there was no
turning back.
Danes and Fen alike began to get into the craze that quickly rivaled NASCAR and Formula
One. As corporations funneled more money into the races, the Fen were able to further organize the sport so that entire
courses in the Asteroid Belt could be set aside and made into special hazard zones for the racers to navigate. These
zones could be altered almost at will by using asteroids that had handwaviumized maneuvering systems permanently installed.
Furthermore, whole new venues were opened.
Desiring to stake their own claim to racing fame, the City of Kandor organized the Armstrong Day classic - a gruelling series of runs through Luna's most
treacherous moonscapes culminating in 5,000 kilometers of rough terrain. Not to be outdone, the Warsies organized a
series of Asteroid Races in the rings of Saturn, where the top speeds are nowhere nearly as fast, but the maneuvering is on epic x-game levels of
hair-raising. Most interesting of all is the Trekkies' man-made hazard course on Starbase 1 where the obstacles not
only move around of their own accord during the race, but also, depending on the class of racers, open fire on you!
Over the years, Asteroid Racing has moved with Fen-kind out into other systems and while
sports such as NASCAR and Formula One still have cult followings, most people know where the real action in racing is to be found.
What I have here is just a basic rundown of the history of the sport, so I'm looking to expand by adding teams, different racing leagues, racing events,
and venues. Thus, any input from the peanut gallery is welcome.
Asteroid Racing
Even the BNF Asteroid Racers themselves are not sure who the first racer
was. This mysterious figure is said to appear in the middle of races, never at the start nor the finish. It is said that the Phantom Racer is a quirk of Handwavium - that some adventurous soul handwaviumized a high-performance car and
together they race through the asteroid belt for all eternity.
That said, it was appearances of the Phantom Racer that led to the start of competitive
asteroid racing as we know it today. Aside from the Phantom Racer, one of the first ones were Benjamin Rhodes and
KJ. As they raced together, they began to catch the attention of other skilled pilots who joined them in their
races.
At first, it started as informal gatherings where an unspoken set of rules bound them in
trust. The vehicles were varied, but ran along a certain theme: a small and highly maneuverable fen-spacecraft with an
AI running the avionics and navigation systems.
Word began to spread and others began to show up, most of them with no friggin' clue
of what they were doing - they became the first casualties and led to the drafting of the Charter of the Asteroid Racers, hence why all Asteroid Racers
proclaim their laws to be written in blood.
More people began to join in on the fun and developing traditions of Asteroid Racing,
and so the sport began to grow more and more organized. It was not long until corporations, both in orbit and dirtside,
began to hear about the craze and sought to stake their claim on the sport.
And thus, Asteroid Racing exploded into the sports scene on Earth and there was no
turning back.
Danes and Fen alike began to get into the craze that quickly rivaled NASCAR and Formula
One. As corporations funneled more money into the races, the Fen were able to further organize the sport so that entire
courses in the Asteroid Belt could be set aside and made into special hazard zones for the racers to navigate. These
zones could be altered almost at will by using asteroids that had handwaviumized maneuvering systems permanently installed.
Furthermore, whole new venues were opened.
Desiring to stake their own claim to racing fame, the City of Kandor organized the Armstrong Day classic - a gruelling series of runs through Luna's most
treacherous moonscapes culminating in 5,000 kilometers of rough terrain. Not to be outdone, the Warsies organized a
series of Asteroid Races in the rings of Saturn, where the top speeds are nowhere nearly as fast, but the maneuvering is on epic x-game levels of
hair-raising. Most interesting of all is the Trekkies' man-made hazard course on Starbase 1 where the obstacles not
only move around of their own accord during the race, but also, depending on the class of racers, open fire on you!
Over the years, Asteroid Racing has moved with Fen-kind out into other systems and while
sports such as NASCAR and Formula One still have cult followings, most people know where the real action in racing is to be found.