Anybody here ever have any experience owning or operating a karting business? Can you share a few pointers? Starting capital layout, equipment considerations, operating costs, staffing, returns, etc.
How would you identify a premium location?
I'm curious- I've got a hare-brained idea.
Los of money, zoning are two things that come to mind.
I have owned one for 6 years www.speedworld.ca .I have a few suggestions: 1. If indoors, Track area needs to be at least 30,000 square feet and any poles need to be at least 30' apart. 2.Be able to serve food of some kind-hot dogs, pizza, subs, something 3.Hairpin turns are where most of the accidents will happen 4.Make your barriers from tires held together with 5/8" thick puckboard-don't bother with the fancy barrier stuff, it's expensive and won't work in areas where people crash often. 5.People like speed, have at least one long straight or sweeper where they can keep their foot down for a while. 6.Use timing equipment-delete results from people who misbehave 7.Be a members only club-helps with insurance costs and you can give demerits to or ban bad drivers. 8.Have a solid maintenance program-change oil often, make sure karts all have the same laptimes-post test results so people can see there is no fastest kart. 9.Have an orientation video going over all the rules 10.Get a surveillance system with cameras on every corner of the track-this will save you $$$$ from lawsuits 11.Get American or Canadian built karts-the Euro stuff is built for Euro customers and they aren't as rough as North American drivers. 12.30% of the people will be bad drivers and will cause accidents 13.It will take at least $250,000 to start a business if you rent, much more if you are buying the land/building 14.You will need a welder, grinder, drill, wrenches, etc to fix karts 15.Any location that people can easily find is good but they need to feel that their car is safe in the parking lot. Don't worry about being on a bus route-people who arrive by bus will crash your karts then threaten your life when you try to stop them.
loosecannon wrote: Don't worry about being on a bus route-people who arrive by bus will crash your karts then threaten your life when you try to stop them.
Not to hijack the thread, but that seems to be the best argument against public transportation. In Dallas the crime rate follows the rail line.
Well, there you go!
I will say that Motor World in Virginia Beach, VA was the best part of the honeymoon.
In reply to loosecannon:
When I come to canada, I must come visit that place. Holy crap!
In reply to SVreX:
Keep me in mind when you get closer to opening your doors. I don't have much money to put down, but an advertising degree and a love of karting may help you in your hare-brained idea.
I think an indoor karting track with electric karts would be a good business where I live. I looked into a bit about 6 months ago or so, but when I realized I didn't have the kind of capital to fund the operation without a lot of borrowing, I figured it would be a good idea for some on else.
There's an electric karting place in PA I've gone to a couple of times. A couple of things I noticed: +1 on the food. The place is practically a dog & burger place that happens to rent karts (sort of similar to the movie theater/pop corn joke). They also have a separate area for birthday parties. Their electric karts seem to have a remote power control. The operators can kill/adjust power while you're out there. If there's a wreck they need to clear, they'll kill the karts while the operators are on course. If they see somebody driving like an ass, they'll reduce the power.
The downside to some of this is guys like me can find it rather boring, so I have little desire to ever go back.
Yes, electric karts are boring.
Ian F wrote: There's an electric karting place in PA I've gone to a couple of times. ... The downside to some of this is guys like me can find it rather boring, so I have little desire to ever go back.
That is Arnolds in Oaks, right? The Del Val BMW club used to hit that once in a while and they would let the karts go full blast for us. They are torque machines and pretty okay but kindof heavy and too quiet - not anywhere near as engaging as good old liquid dino.
My .02 on karting as a business (as a customer):
I haven't driven any of the newer electric karts, but my thoughts were that they would expand the potential customer base. We might like the noise and the smells of burning gasoline, but the average family may not. There should be less maintenance on the electric karts I would think and the HVAC requirements of the building would be way easier to meet without all the exhaust and fuel in the building.
Hmmm... lot's of great input here.
I'm thinking outdoor wheel-to-wheel. Thoughts on that vs. indoor?
I'm thinking that the sun will chase off some customers, but the cost of the indoor (A/C, rent, etc.) would be significant. Maybe the lower overhead will allow a profit, in spite of lower participation.
Population is an issue. The location I'm considering is not a big city, but it will have immediate proximity to a world class race track, including both a road race track and drag racing.
I'm also thinking one component of it could be portable, like Endurance Racing Karts.
I know the prices are typically steep per visit. I'm hoping to keep that down with lower overhead and a graduated step payment plan- low for weekenders and local participation, with higher prices when racing events are going on.
Thanks for the help- Keep up the ideas, guys!
Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote: That is Arnolds in Oaks, right? The Del Val BMW club used to hit that once in a while and they would let the karts go full blast for us.
Yep. Unfortunately, when you just randomly show up to run with a few friends (local MINI people) and are running with the general public, they are less giving.
The PhillySCCA crew were running a for-fun kart series at an indoor gas-kart track in DE a couple of years ago over the winter, but the events were always on weeknights and the place is about 2.5 hrs from work. By the end of the series, they had trouble getting full fields and didn't run it last year.
Outdoor would be cheaper to build but you would get very few customers when it rains and none at all when it's freezing/snowing. How much this matters depends on climate. Heating expenses for an indoor track are minimal as long as it's busy.
No matter where you are, you need to have a decent locker room and decent bathrooms. You can use the lockers themselves to divide up the locker room.
Absolutely let them race wheel-to-wheel - and draw up a course where you have at least a 15-second run of wide/multiline corners to allow clean overtaking. You need places to pass! On a wide enough track, with fast enough karts, and a couple tight turns with wide pavement, you might be able to get away with an "any contact disqualifies both drivers". On a track that's too narrow, with nothing but medium-speed-turns, and slow enough karts that you never get speed variation, the only way one OK or better driver will pass another is by getting him sideways or backwards.
Electric karts will be great as soon as somebody hacks the Prius battery/motor/controller combo well enough to make it practical. Otherwise you're looking at karts too heavy to lift and too heavy to make rotate into the corners.
You can get catalytic converters for the small Honda engines. People will pay more for karts that are more exciting/faster and it'll also scare off some of the idiots. OVRP uses the 13-horsepower GX390 and that's about right.
Get people addicted. A league with a dozen guys in it paying $500 each for eight weekday evenings of racing will help; three or four leagues concurrently will go a long way towards your bills. I'd love to compete in a winter "All-Star" league - or a $100 "Pro vs Joe" night where you get a few TaG/Shifter drivers or even car racers to take on the league aces.
Get people addicted part 2. Simple pricing schemes are terrible for indoor karting; the demand is very heavily time-of-the-week dependent. If you charge $20 a race all the time, not only will nobody want to come to race Wednesday at 4 PM against the two friends they bought and the mechanic who just completed the brake rebuild and needs to test the kart but you'll be leaving tons of money on the table on Friday and Saturday nights when it's packed and people are waiting two hours for their first race and an hour between each. It should take up the whole board behind the registration desk and I'm only half joking. F1 Boston gets away with a simple scheme because they basically charge peak-time pricing all the time and have a large enough catchment area that peak time lasts all weekend. Maine Indoor's complicated scheme makes a very marginal catchment area work for them.
Your clients are employed, generally either professionally or in the trades. There is very little reason to open before 5 PM. I've been to indoor kart tracks during normal worktimes on weekdays. They're mausoleums.
Decent barriers will save injuries. The plastic flexibarriers are probably best - even better would be to use the flexibarriers and put old tires around all the support poles so you don't have any "hard" single kart impact points.
I'm in the South. Snow/freezing will NEVER be a problem. Rain is pretty rare.
Rain checks are a good tool to develop customer loyalty/ addiction.
insurance, lots of insurance
The best (by far) karts I've ever driven have been at an indoor place here in Richmond--g-Force Karts. They've been here for quite a few years, and I believe they are now a part of a larger organization. The karts are faster than any I've driven outdoors, and the course is pretty challenging.
I agree on the food, and that's one place that g-force is pretty weak.
The space is a warehouse near the NASCAR track, and it's cold as hell in there in the winter, but it doesn't matter. It's a blast.
chaparral wrote: If you charge $20 a race all the time, not only will nobody want to come to race Wednesday at 4 PM against the two friends they bought and the mechanic who just completed the brake rebuild and needs to test the kart but you'll be leaving tons of money on the table on Friday and Saturday nights when it's packed and people are waiting two hours for their first race and an hour between each.
Good point. It would probably be a good idea to set peak and off-peak rates similar to how ski resorts do. Loosecannon can probably add more insight into this.
Are you looking to put in a new track or buy an old one? Kart tracks are often killed by the quality of the pavement (or pavements) that make up the track. If it's too rough people find elsewhere to race.
Being in Georgia you are very close to Florida (in case you didn't already know), and it seems that Florida has one highest concentrations of kart racers. If this is still true I would assume that Georgia would be a good place to start another track.
I have seen several karting operations go for sale, sometimes you can buy their whole fleet of rental karts in one grab!
Insurance would be a killer, getting enough customers proves to be a challenge in many parts of the country, cost of putting in a race track, multiple rental karts, land to put the track on, etc.
It would be expensive but cool!
SVreX wrote: Hmmm... lot's of great input here. I'm thinking outdoor wheel-to-wheel. Thoughts on that vs. indoor? I'm thinking that the sun will chase off some customers, but the cost of the indoor (A/C, rent, etc.) would be significant. Maybe the lower overhead will allow a profit, in spite of lower participation. Population is an issue. The location I'm considering is not a big city, but it will have immediate proximity to a world class race track, including both a road race track and drag racing. I'm also thinking one component of it could be portable, like Endurance Racing Karts. I know the prices are typically steep per visit. I'm hoping to keep that down with lower overhead and a graduated step payment plan- low for weekenders and local participation, with higher prices when racing events are going on. Thanks for the help- Keep up the ideas, guys!
A couple of old SCCA buddies (a married couple) just opened a place (indoor, and electrics) near VIR, would you like me to contact them and ask?
Don't forget that GRM's home "test track" is Ocala Gran Prix, which is an outdoor kart facility in Ocala. Which reminds me...why have I never been there?!? 
Joshua wrote: I have seen several karting operations go for sale, sometimes you can buy their whole fleet of rental karts in one grab!
By all means, let me know if you see one.
friedgreencorrado wrote: A couple of old SCCA buddies (a married couple) just opened a place (indoor, and electrics) near VIR, would you like me to contact them and ask?
Sure. Won't turn down any input.
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