When we’re not booking full throttle karting experiences for our customers, we like to escape the office and take to the track ourselves. So when we got the opportunity to visit our Tockwith venue over the bank holiday weekend, we couldn’t resist the chance to satisfy our need for speed.
For the low down on the day’s action we hand over to our resident IT whiz, and tame racing driver, Etienne. Some say that he can write code in over 6,000 different languages, and that when he left France the then President declared a national day of mourning.. all we know is he’s called Le Stig!
“For our team karting experience we booked an Iron Man Sprint 40, which was a 10 minute qualifying session followed by a 30 minute race. I’d done some karting before but only for 10/15 minute stints, so I was really looking forward to it.
When we arrived at the track we had a quick look at the circuit, then we signed in, watched a safety video and got kitted up ready to race. The briefing started at around 4.30pm, and by the time we’d got changed and had our briefing qualifying started at approximately 5.00pm.
The video was really clear, and taught us what all the different flags meant, as well as how to get the best out of the karts. The race marshals were on hand to offer advice too, and even though there were lots of flags to remember, most of them never came into play.
Once we’d completed the briefing it was time for qualifying, and I wasn’t nervous at all. My goal was to do well, not come last and to have a good time. Qualifying flew by and I managed to post the 2nd fastest time, which was great. The track had a wide variety of turns and a couple of really fast straights, so I really went for it.
The 30 minute race seemed to last for ages, and I really enjoyed it. At the start I ended up in the tyres because I tried to take the hairpin too fast, and I was still tweaking my approach by the 40th lap! I needed every single minute of the race to recover from my early mistake too, and even though I think the key is to be steady rather than just quick for a couple of laps, I was really pushing the kart towards the end.
As we completed the last few laps it felt like we were racing in a real grand prix, and my hands and legs were staring to ache a little bit, but I was riding on pure adrenaline. 40 minutes in the karts was the perfect amount of time though, and I don’t think I would have been able to keep racing for much longer without making another mistake. I don’t know how the F1 drivers do it!
We all had a great time, and I haven’t had that much fun in a long time. The highlight for me was overtaking the race leader and 2nd place driver in one swoop, especially because it was so close to the end of the race. The atmosphere was fun but competitive, and our karting experience was even better than I expected. I would definitely do it again!”
Etienne and the team took part in the Iron Man Sprint 40 at our Tockwith venue, to find your nearest circuit enter your location in the search bar and follow the links to our website.