Photo: WCAR
Between 2003 and 2019, racing and airplane enthusiasts enjoyed something called the Red Bull Air Race. The highly successful series somehow went under, and the past few years have gone by without what was dubbed the fastest motorsport on the planet.
This year, however, racing airplanes will make a comeback, starting with an insane event scheduled to take place at Goodwood in July. The full 2022 calendar is not yet complete, but we do know it will also include races in Jakarta, Indonesia, and Perth, Australia.
This week, the organizers of the new series, World Championship Air Race (WCAR, or ARWC, as they also call themselves), added a new location on the map of events, one that will be around in 2022, 2023, and 2024.
Borneo, Malaysia, is the place where fast moving airplanes are expected to race in September, watched live by an estimated 150,000 people, and remotely by some 50 million – that’s about double the number of viewers the Red Bull Air Race was capable of drawing in.
The revived competition will comprise several series. The main one will be called Elite XR/1 and will have 12 teams facing each other for the fastest run. Pilots will be flying either Zivko Edge or MXS airplanes on conventional fuel for the first few years, then switching to biofuels. The Zivko can reach speeds of 196 mph (315 kph), while the MXS flies at 265 mph (426 kph).
A feeder series called SR/2 will have three teams with multiple pilots racing “in a Le Mans style of relay race with cumulative time determining the final results and allocation of world championship points.”
WCAR is expected to run for at least 15 years, so new series will be added later on. We’re promised jetpack racing, but also high-speed runs of electrically-powered vertical takeoff and landing machines (eVTOL).
This week, the organizers of the new series, World Championship Air Race (WCAR, or ARWC, as they also call themselves), added a new location on the map of events, one that will be around in 2022, 2023, and 2024.
Borneo, Malaysia, is the place where fast moving airplanes are expected to race in September, watched live by an estimated 150,000 people, and remotely by some 50 million – that’s about double the number of viewers the Red Bull Air Race was capable of drawing in.
The revived competition will comprise several series. The main one will be called Elite XR/1 and will have 12 teams facing each other for the fastest run. Pilots will be flying either Zivko Edge or MXS airplanes on conventional fuel for the first few years, then switching to biofuels. The Zivko can reach speeds of 196 mph (315 kph), while the MXS flies at 265 mph (426 kph).
A feeder series called SR/2 will have three teams with multiple pilots racing “in a Le Mans style of relay race with cumulative time determining the final results and allocation of world championship points.”
WCAR is expected to run for at least 15 years, so new series will be added later on. We’re promised jetpack racing, but also high-speed runs of electrically-powered vertical takeoff and landing machines (eVTOL).
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