SpeedVegas, Part 2 - Karting

If my feelings were a bit lukewarm about my exotic car driving at SpeedVegas, the karting we did afterwards was an unqualified great time. The karts were fun to drive, the track was challenging, and I even got in some great wheel to wheel racing.

I've done a lot of indoor karting at places like Autobahn Indoor Speedway and, while it's fun, those experiences left me worried about a few things that might be likely problems at SpeedVegas. My biggest concern was traffic, since you can get held up a lot by slower drivers at Autobahn while you're waiting for a decent place to pass. Even with 15 cars on track at SpeedVegas though, the track was long enough to get some separation from other drivers and the straight sections were long and wide enough to get passes done.

Another thing I was worried about was how long we'd be sitting around waiting to get on track. We were signed up for three races, and at Autobahn it can take forever to get through three races because of long waits between each race. At SpeedVegas though, were were on track for our first race very quickly and then only had a few minutes of downtime between each race. Maybe it's because the karts are gas instead of electric and so don't take any time to charge up, but they were pretty much constantly running races.

One minor downside was that the karts were slightly underpowered and didn't have quite enough top speed. I've done gas karts before where you really had to roll onto the throttle smoothly while trying to avoid power oversteer, but that definitely wasn't the case with these karts. The longest two straights also felt like you reached the kart's top speed too early in the straight and then were just waiting until you reached the next turn.

Despite those downsides, the track and karts still combined for a really fun drive. The karts tended towards oversteer under braking, so getting the balance just right to scrub a little speed and then get through a corner smoothly without sliding was challenging - in a good way. There was a good mix of fast and slow corners too, with the first corner at the end of the main straight requiring just a little bit of brakes and then flying through at nearly top speed. Nailing the braking point, turn-in, and apex and carrying full speed to the outside wall was super satisfying.

The other people in my group really had a great time there also. Everyone had varying levels of experience and even the less experienced racers enjoyed improving their laps during each session. This kind of karting is such a great mix of wheel to wheel racing, accessibility for all skill levels, low cost, and just general fun factor. It seems crazy to say given the huge cost difference, but I think the karting races outshined the exotic car driving as the highlight of my day.