Has anybody ever thought about rules for competitive swoop bike racing? I have a player who wants a background as a swoop bike racer which i'm fine with but he would like to occasionally race as well.
Swoopbike Racing
Sounds like a chase scenario with obstacles.
check this out.
Well, a swoopchase is def chase rules with obstacles. However, the sport of actual swoop racing? Where it is just a race and the track? I would probably just do a series of pilot checks for each of the turns, and allow some kind of ramming type attack to add setback die or increase the difficulty on an opponents next pilot check in between if they are at engaged range. And that attack would either be tied to a coordination, pilot (ground) or even athletics depending on what they are trying to do. Of course, if I were to have this be a big part of the campaign, I'd probably also want to design a half a dozen swoops for the purpose of it, with some that provide brawn bonuses or coordination bonuses for those types of bumping and checking elements of the race. The other option is to just have every racer make a pilot check at each turn, the top score moves ahead 1 relative range band, the lowest drops back one, the rest stay the same. Any triumphs also move you up 1 range band. You do that at each turn for 3-5 laps, you should get a pretty clear winner. Otherwise you have a tie breaker check at the end.
But that'd def be on the homebrew side of things. The chase rules in general should be able to cover most of this.
Although it can be played out as a chase scenario what I was looking for was a little different. what I am thinking is in the lines of rules and regulations for professional swoop bike races. Like what is and isn't allowed on the track. designs of tracks, and how many racers per race. That sort of stuff.
If no one has done it yet I could probably put something together, but was wondering if anyone else had done anything with it yet?
huh thanks for the input KRKappel it helps a bit more.
If you're looking for flavor, pick up the strategy guides for the two podracing games from around the time Episode I came out. Each featured a podracing "circuit" with a half dozen or so planets, a few racetracks per planet (I believe with maps in both cases), a gaggle of other racers, etc. Supplement this with viewings of the associated game on youtube and you should have a good feel for races in a bunch of different environments (my personal favorites were Ord Ibanna and Ando Prime).
With respect to mechanics, I don't have the book, but I think the chase rules are a good start. Myself, I would consider a track with 3 laps and 3 to 5 "zones", depending on how intricate you want things to get. Within each zone, the player makes one role. Give each zone a description and different features (eg, a vast plain, a narrow valley, the ruins of an old temple, the interior of a volcano, blah blah blah). Maybe some options aren't available in every zone. Maybe 2 of them have a short cut. Maybe 2 of them are so large that you can't easily engage another opponent to try to sabotage them...
Having tried podracing myself in both d6 and d20, a few words of caution:
1) Unless all of your PCs are racing, don't make the encounter too long. People will root and cheer for their buddy for only so long. 
2) However you structure it, make sure the leader can't get too far ahead too fast. Control the pace of the race. Consider having most roles be "to stay with the pack" rather than "to pull ahead". In one attempt, the PC got so far ahead (because of his high skill) that he had basically lapped everyone else. Boring!
Good luck!
Although it can be played out as a chase scenario what I was looking for was a little different. what I am thinking is in the lines of rules and regulations for professional swoop bike races. Like what is and isn't allowed on the track. designs of tracks, and how many racers per race. That sort of stuff.
If no one has done it yet I could probably put something together, but was wondering if anyone else had done anything with it yet?
As far as any actual reference to swoop bike racing rules, I'm not aware of any examples, but I imagine it would look very similar to podracing. The feel of the Outer Rim is very "survival of the fittest" and I'm sure that there aren't many rules involved. Weapons shouldn't be allowed in a professional race (maybe in a crudely organized gang event), but bumping and running competitors off the course is all part of the action. Outside interference, such as tusken raiders, is not uncommon.
Here are a couple of rule systems that might work:
It is $8 to download, and the rules weren't specifically written for the Star Wars setting, but I saw a couple of sites where people used this for podracing and they were able to use the rules to set up tusken raiders/equivalent to shoot at the racers. Also, there is a picture at that site showing speeder bikes racing through what appears to be the forests of that crazy moon of Endor.
There is also a small indie game company called Faultline Studios, who made a free set of rules for podracing (again, should translate fine to swoop bikes):
http://www.faultline-studios.com/Podracing.htm
I don't know which set of rules is better, but Future Race sounds more intriguing based on what I've seen.