After a busy few months at work we decided to treat the team to a day out paid for by the company. Our office is only a couple of minutes away from our local karting venue, so a go karting experience was a no-brainer. Even though we'd talked about going down and giving it a try, we'd never actually found the time so this gave us the perfect opportunity to finally give it a go.
We're only a fairly small office and in total there were 11 of us that were taking part, and even though a couple of the blokes had been on karting experiences before most of us were completely new to it. On the day of our event we headed straight down to the circuit after work and got signed in straight away. The guys at the venue were really helpful and once we'd all got changed into our race-suits we sat down for a short safety briefing from one of the marshals. The briefing covered how to get the best out of the karts as well as all of the safety aspects, and by the time it was over we were all raring to go.
Before getting the race under way we had a couple of laps to familiarise ourselves with the track, which gave everybody the opportunity to build their confidence at the wheel. With the practice laps over it was time for the serious stuff, and when the race got under way it was exactly like an F1 race in terms of format. We had a couple of qualifying rounds to work our way through as well as a grand final, which was a flat out race to the finish line.
Even though we weren't quite up to F1 standards you could definitely tell who the petrol heads in the office were. The race was fairly even though and to say most of us were new to karting experiences, we put some of the younger guys in their place!
Our experience came to a close with a podium presentation for the quickest drivers, and even though I didn't make it onto the podium it was definitely one of the highlights of the day. The whole team thoroughly enjoyed our karting experience and we'll definitely be back.. once I've had time to practice!
