(My, I'm just full of semi-relevant little tidbits tonight... )

The extremely dangerous sport of asteroid racing is almost unknown in the galaxy today, but during the Golden Age of the Wedge Defense Force (1992-2288), it was one of the most popular video-spectator sports in the United Galactica. Curiously, it had its origins in a military training exercise.

In the Zeta Cygni system, traditional home system of the WDF, there is an asteroid field which is classified as a Class A-1-A hazard to navigation, just inside the orbit of Zeta Cygni II (Planitia). In this unusually dense field of space rocks, which range from gravel-size to roughly battleship-size and crowd dangerously together in precisely the manner that hard science types tell us asteroids do not, Wedge Defense Force small-craft pilots were and are trained and tested in the fine art of hazard-avoidance navigation. Particularly sadistic instructors have been known to seed the area with mines, either of the exploding variety or, more commonly, the cannon-platform variety, and then make the students sweep it.

In the early twenty-first century, WDF commander in chief Captain MegaZone, executive officer and fighter pilot Commander Benjamin D. "Gryphon" Hutchins, and 3WA Trouble Consultants Kei Morgan and Yuri Daniels took this standard training exercise, made it harder and more dangerous, and then turned it into a four-way race - a timed course with pylons, required maneuvers, and elapsed time bonuses for accurate gunnery. The result was a remarkably dangerous and exhilarating sport which basically involved the four of them getting hold of the hottest, fastest, most maneuverable, sturdiest, most heavily armed small ships they could find (usually heavy starfighters), slamming on the loudest rock, jazz or funk music they could handle, and racing balls-to-the-wall through the Zeta Cygni asteroid field like absolute maniacs with no self-preservation instinct, blasting everything in sight except each other.

Of course, with qualifications like that, asteroid racing caught on instantly as a televised spectator sport with the general public and as an activity with other small-craft pilots, including Gryphon's Eight-Ball Squadron comrades and pilots from the Royal Salusian Armed Forces and Confederate Freespacers Mercenary Fleet. Before long, the bi-monthly (except when assignments prevented the usual suspects from congregating) asteroid races were a major event, drawing television viewers from throughout the UG as well as eager pirate-feed viewers in the Kilrathi and Klingon Empires. In 2079, the Klingons even sent a team to the June meet, an historic act of international sports cooperation which eventually led to the present Federation-Klingon Alliance and the long friendship between the Klingon Empire and the Republic of Zeta Cygni.

The sport's four founders refined their game whenever they were back in the Zeta Cygni system, adapting equipment to suit, adding more and harder bonuses (for picking up objects, for example) and power-ups (special modules which, if captured, could be jacked into a racer's computer system to enable a new weapon or defensive system). As the "rules" of the game evolved, the participants were grouped by spacecraft type into Stock Fixed-Configuration, Stock Veritech, Modified Fixed, Modified Veritech, and the Unlimited Class, where pretty much anything was allowed equipment-wise. Aside from the classes, the only real rule was that racers were not to fire their weapons at each other or attempt to make each other crash. Other than that, it was a no-holds-barred free-for-all of speed, naked aggression, and rock-blasting - almost as exciting as actual combat, and almost as dangerous, too.

In those good old days, as one of the WDF's top thrusterbusters, Gryphon raced in all the classes: Stock Veritech in his VF-1FS Hyper Valkyrie, Stock Fixed in an ExoSalusia Rapier II, Modified Veritech in a tuned and tweaked VF/A-4 Alpha Legios, Modified Fixed in a stripped-and-rodded Koensayr BTL-A4, and Unlimited in a super-fast little scarlet dart of his own design he called Swordfish. In its second incarnation, rebuilt almost completely after a tremendous crash in 2171 that had nearly punched its owner's ticket for good, the Swordfish was damned near unbeatable. The scarlet ship was retired in 2200 and placed in storage in the old Utopia Planitia Naval Shipyards ring complex around Planitia, where it presumably still is today.

Gryphon was the only regular to race regularly in all five classes; the others tended to stick to Unlimited and one of the standard classes. MegaZone dominated Modified Fixed Configuration with his much-tweaked Subpro Z-95, Glamorous Glen; Eight-Ball exec David "Daver" Ritchie terrorized Modified Veritech with a VF-1S Super Valkyrie named Queen Christina. The Stock Veritech title swapped with alarming regularity between Gryphon's 92-007 and Kei Morgan's VT-1FD, Scarlet Lady. The commander of WDF Squadron VF-621 (Def Leppard), Major Joe Elliott, all but owned Stock Fixed with his Raptor, regularly challenged only by the idol of the Klingon Empire, Klaang varKalaan, and his J-77C scoutfighter Qapla' (Success).

With the sudden dissolution of the WDF in 2288, the semi-formal asteroid races of Zeta Cygni ceased as well. Several attempts were made to revive the sport, in Zeta Cygni and other places, sometimes using artificial asteroid fields, but all were short-lived; without the driving spark of any of its four inventors, and with the overall tone of the galaxy not very recreational, the dangerous game was just not interesting enough to catch on again.

The WDF's reformation in 2381 gave rise to some speculation as to the possible return of the original asteroid races, but the next few years were entirely too busy for the rebuilding Force to spend any time on games, and with the retirement from the WDF of all four asteroid-racing founders in 2392 [ED. NOTE: OK, OK, we know, Grand Admiral MegaZone retired in 2391, stop sending us e-mail already], it seems unlikely now that they will have the time or the presence in Zeta Cygni to re-establish the sport.

On the other hand, one never knows, and rumors abound that Gryphon, now Chief of the International Police Organization's Experts of Justice, is working on the ultimate Unlimited Class asteroid racer. Exactly what form that ship may take, no one knows; the speculations vary from the resurrection of the Swordfish II to a collaboration with Autobot Air Marshal Jetfire to the particularly wild rumor that the new super-racer is none other than the Chief's personal yacht, Daggerdisc, a Corellian YT-1300-series light freighter. Similar rumors surround the private spacecraft of several of the old-time asteroid racing greats, though, including MegaZone (now an Experts of Justice field operative), Kei Morgan (the same), and former Eight-Ball Mark "Haywire" Luchini (presently commanding the WDF 112th Tactical Fighter Wing based on the Imperial-class WDF Star Destroyer Breetai Tul). It is this editor's belief that all such rumors can be taken with a large grain of salt... but we'd really like to see at least a reunion race!