THE OPENING LINE

Monday, Nov. 6, 2006 | 7:37 a.m.

Doesn't take a rocket scientist to see where this is going

Just when you thought it was semi-safe to attend an air show, New Mexico governor Bill Richardson has bestowed his blessing upon something called the Rocket Racing League, to be based in Las Cruces in his home state.

This is the same Bill Richardson who in 1995 engaged in negotiations with Saddam Hussein to secure the release of two American aerospace workers who had been captured by the Iraqis after wandering over the Kuwait border.

Now that was rocket science.

This new Rocket Racing League, on the other hand, sounds more like a Road Runner cartoon featuring Wile E. Coyote with a giant Acme Roman candle strapped to his back.

It's probably just a matter of time before something crashes and/or burns.

The Rocket Racing League is billed as "an aerospace entertainment organization which combines the competition of racing with the excitement of rocketry."

Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin are going to love it.

"It has appeal to Grandpa, Grandma, Mom, Dad and the kids," said Marc Robert Cumbow, an Albuquerque land developer and one of the principals in Santa Fe Racing, one of three teams that will field experimental, well, rocket ships, that will race across a course that is 10,000 feet long, 5,000 feet high and 3,000 feet wide. More teams, it is hoped (or feared), are on the drawing board at the sanitarium.

One of the Rocket Racing League pilots - provided the six-race series gets off the ground in 2007 - will be retired astronaut Rick Searfoss, who flew multiple missions on the space shuttle Atlantis. Another is Erik R. Lindbergh, grandson of Charles L.L. (Lucky Lindy) Lindbergh. Erik's claim to fame is not flying solo nonstop flights across the Atlantic, but living in a straw house that he built himself.

"If you see someone playing Hacky Sack in an airport," says Erik Lindbergh's bio on the Rocket Racing League Web site, "it's probably him."

Racing rockets with a former space shuttle commander is one thing.

Doing it with a guy who lives in a straw house and plays Hacky Sack in the airport is quite another.

THIS WEEK'S BEST BET

Hawaii at UNLV, men's hoops, 7 p.m. Friday, Thomas & Mack Center

Another season of unrealistic expectations begins.

TICKETS: $10, $26

ON THE WEB: www.unlvtickets.com

ALSO WORTH A LOOK

Dixie College at UNLV, men's basketball exhibition, 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Thomas & Mack Center

Greg Anthony's No. 50 Rebels jersey will be raised to the rafters, never to be worn again (unlike Jerry Tarkanian's No. 2, which is being worn by Kevin Kruger this year).

TICKETS: $3, $26

ON THE WEB: www.unlvtickets.com