Spaceship racing is an interstellar sporting event. It is expensive, high-class and, in the minds of some, more than a little ridiculous, and as such is notably participated in by Amarr royalty and nobles.
Typical games
Basic setup
The individual ships involved can be different models. The rules are fairly simple. Each contestant has to destroy a series of beacons. Each beacon, when destroyed, will drop a marker that need to be returned to the station where the game started. Points of varying measure are scored by reaching your beacon, returning your markers, destroying other people's beacons, destroying or returning their markers, and performing any maneuvers considered particularly elegant, flashy or dangerous.
Risks
All beacons are fairly closely spaced, so there is always a risk that your opponent might shoot down yours instead of going for his own. As a result, ships need to be fitted not only with sufficient firepower to destroy the beacons, but also electronic warfare capabilities to disrupt the targeting capabilities of other players. Not only that, but since each marker is fairly sizable, you'd need to fit cargo hold expanders on your ship if you wanted to haul more than a couple back to station at any one time; and expanders would slow your ship down noticeably. Ship setups are kept strictly secret, shown only to professional inspectors.
Notorious events
The races do have a clear element of danger. The most recent incident occurred when illegal prototype rig fitted to a ship piloted by Keral and Selan malfunctioned, causing them to fatally crash.