A couple weeks ago I made it out to United Karting to try out their rental karts. It's an outdoor karting track sort of similar to what I did at SpeedVegas in April. I only did a couple of races but I was happy with the venue overall and I'm looking forward to going back.
My first race was a bit of a mixed bag. During the warm-up lap while I was getting a feel for the kart's handling, I noticed that the kart would dart to the right as soon as I applied the brakes. It also wouldn't turn right at all unless I was braking. I made it through the session, but it was annoying driving because I had to stab the brakes to rotate the kart any time I went through a right hand turn on the track.
Other than the kart problems, I also found the track a little hard to navigate. Most of the walls are the normal red and white interlocking barrier systems you find at most karting tracks, but some of the track boundaries only used tires that were fairly low to the ground. It made it hard at times to visually pick up where the next corner is supposed to be until you really got the track memorized.
Just to get the last of the negatives out of the way now, the seatbelts on the karts didn't really cinch all the way down so it felt very weird driving with loose seatbelts. The track was also kind of bumpy in spots but that wasn't a huge deal.
The second session, between having a much better kart and being a little more familiar with the track, went significantly better than the first. My main impression was just how fast the track and kart felt. Unlike SpeedVegas, there was no point where I was running into the top speed of the kart and just waiting patiently for the next corner. There were even a couple corners where you go flying past the barriers at such a speed that it felt like you'd have quite a shunt if you messed up the corner. Presumably with the interlocking safety barriers, the walls would have some give and you wouldn't actually hurt yourself, but it definitely added to the sensation of speed on the track. If anything my only quibble with the track layout is that there weren't enough typical brake-apex-accelerate-trackout corners that can feel so satisfying to get just right.
The balance of the kart in my second session was also pretty nice. Several of the corners were long enough that you could really play around with the throttle to affect the balance mid-corner, which was a lot of fun.
One thing worth mentioning is that I was able to show up and get in a couple races without having to wait around forever, which was nice. Part of this is just down to having gas karts, whereas I think at Autobahn Indoor Speedway they have to wait to let the electric karts charge up fully between races, resulting in a lot of down time.
Overall I was really happy with the experience. I was several seconds slower than the other drivers, but I'm looking forward to going back and learning the track and the karts better and improving my lap times. A lack of decent passing opportunities is a huge problem at Autobahn, so I'm curious to see how the track layout at United Karting works for wheel-to-wheel racing once I'm actually quick enough to be closer to the other drivers.
