Building a Go Kart Track

I’m with Dom. How many new drivers saw it on yt and thought yeah I reckon I’ll be good at that, I’ll go buy a full on race kart? Not many.

Give them rentals to try, get good at and fuel their fire steadily. Create Sodi series, create a license system and run some club100 rentals to progress to, create a natural progression ladder to full on karts.

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I looove rental racing and I think it’s fair to say that I take racing “seriously”.

The primary thing I see is “how to get started” questions and that almost
always leads to “go try rental racing”. Then you have to explain to a new guy that rentals are a perfectly valid way to start that doesn’t involve the additional complexity of trying to figure out the logistics of ownership as well.

It’s the most logical way to bring new people in the sport and seems to be the obvious low hanging fruit in terms of financial success.

I will gladly spend 3-5k at such a facility yearly.

@Richard_Jacques did you do the SWS in Dubai? What’s the all in cost for a full season of that?

Sounds like you could be headed in the direction of a racing school that uses karts in addition to your own arrive-and-drive competition series?
For something like that, Margay’s Ignite range is pretty popular.

Definitely spend some more time validating the gap in the market… Verify who it’s for. Can they pay? Will they pay? Then map out a hypothetical business model based on that. Building a quality asphalt track is going to run $250K on the very low side, not including the land.

I love the idea of another awesome track in the region and I’m excited to watch your progress. I think you’re getting to the point where you have to start drawing up a business plan and really figure out how you plan to make money.

How does rental instruction work? Let’s say I can get to your track 3x a year and I want to rent a kart: how much does that cost? What do I have to go through to get on track? I’m totally down to do driving school sometimes but at a certain point I have to turn laps to git gud.

I also question the notion that GoPro is a facility for people who just want to goof off. It is considered by many to be one of the best kart tracks in the US and on weekends you will see them running 2 stroke owners, 4 stroke owners, and rentals. I’m not understanding how that is catering to the casuals. If anything, the casuals are subsidizing the real racers.

Numbers:
A garage at GoPro costs between 2700 and 5000. I think there are 40 and the average is 4k that’s 160k. Estimate that all of those have the annual membership at $900 and your owner revenue for members is ~$200k

You’ll also have non-member owners and profits from race gas. I don’t know how to estimate those numbers, but it’s something.

I was last at GoPro on New Years Eve and Dec 12. Between those dates 750 new people were added to the Proskill list. If we estimate that rate for the entire year you end up with 14000 new people driving each year, if they drive 3x at $22/drive you end up with $924k. Say you have
500 true believers who drive 20x/year at $20/each gives you another $200k. Call it $1.1M/year.
Rentals aren’t free, though, so figure in cost to buy, run, and maintain:

$5k to buy a kart: $125k
$1500/month/kart: $450k/year
So now your rental cash flow is about 500k/year.

Feel free to critique my numbers.

Aaron,
Concession karts are more like 10k new, I think. I believe you get them with a sort of rolling replacement strategy where Sodi buys back partial fleet every 2 years and you cycle in new karts. My pal who knows about this told me it’s about 250k for a fleet of rentals.

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Sorry I am late to the party. May I suggest trying to contact Mike Jones at Dallas Karting Complex. He is a Pro Racer and Co-Owner of DKC. They are a SWS site as well as a Sodi Kart Dealer, Pro-Shop and Race Team. The Facility is quite good, the track is challenging and they are expanding to a second course that can tie into the original for a Super Track. If you want some real world numbers on costs and strategies, he would be a good source to ask. The track is rental based for revenue generation, but pure racers are catered to as well. They offer on site storage, more like boat storage than private garage, but have the ability to expand in that direction if the market demands. I think their current storage costs (consisting of racks with karts on pallets stacked 4 levels high) is around $100 a month with concierge service included with a call ahead.

I would not call it budget racing, but it certainly affords more than a private garage does. In the end, I would have the consider the cost versus benefit aspect of it all. Personally, I work on my own stuff and have a garage to keep and maintain it so paying someone else to do so does not make sense as an owner. For others that either live too far away, do not have the space at home or the means to transport their Karts to and from the track, then on site storage would have much more value. I would and do appreciate the Schooling aspect of your proposal. In some ways a class environment can be more affordable than a private session with an instructor. Either private owned kart or house kart, makes little difference if the knowledge gained is relevant.

My personal dream is to find a nice chunk of land in the country, away from zoning laws and regulations to build a private track that me and my family can just go turn laps sort of like Ricky and Jordan Taylor grew up with in their back yard. Its not likely to materialize, but its nice to dream. Maybe it will be my legacy to my grand-children, God willing.

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Lol we don’t really have a season as such - it’s 12 months. 2 races per month in winter with one per month in summer for the crazies :joy:

Around $100 per race, arrive and race concept.

Add to that four team endurance’s a year if you fancy it. 24hr, 12hr, 700km and another I forget. Those prices vary depending on the race duration.

You could consider having a fleet of ka rentals and a fleet of 206 rentals. All standard competition kart stuff but maybe bigger bumpers or something. Performance rentals instead of those 400 pound bricks

I would say more… I read 250k per 1/4 - 1/2 miles. My local track (mind you, it’s very fancy) cost $12m to build I think

You should see the nice sodi karts

Oh I agree. That’s why I said at the minimum.

Alex,

To replicate what GoPro has you can expect to pay at least $3mil for the track, buildings, and infrastructure. That doesn’t include the land, impact fees, karts, equipment, furnishings, etc.

I am all for seeing another world class track in NC. I would certainly try it out but I think you need to look a filling a hole in the rental market versus the owner kart market. Racers don’t travel hundreds of miles to GoPro just because it’s nice. That certainly helps but they come because the kart counts and overall high level competition.

The rentals pay the bills at GoPro. They do $10k+ any given Saturday, with a little less during the week. With a lean operation and solid marketing plan you could do well here. This will allow you to have the corporate events which will be your profit per se.

Corporate/group events don’t occur often enough to be your core business for this large of an investment. And you would be able to charge enough to make up the difference.

Keep in mind that GoPro doesn’t require memberships for owners. That is just a value add if someone wants to buy a yearly pass.

You very well may get support from the folks at GoPro if you approach them with the intent to collaborate with them rather than stealing market share. I would love to see a 2-3 local track club series.

One thing I would recommend is having food service on site. I feel strongly that is one major piece lacking at GoPro that really hurts driving in new business.

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It cost in excess of $1M (circa 2010) to just construct the track in this pic. Everything else is extra.

They’re now planning to expand (The empty field in the top middle of the pic, & upper R quadrant in the plan).

Don’t even know what that will cost, but it will ma kg e the track a little over a mile long.

Shane,

Thanks for the feedback. Id be curious if we could poll the surrounding area on how many would be interested in a corporate event type deal. I think it would either be almost a dead end, or people would love it.

I dont think we would replicate completely what GoPro has. Looking at maybe 20-25 garage Morton building type structure on concrete pad. Garages could also vary in size and amenities. And the track i believe we would do asphalt, and probably .6-.7 mile long, depending on the size of the land parcel.

Not a bad idea to reach out to GoPro and talk with them, i just dont want them to think we are here trying to steal business as that is not our intent, we just want to further the sport and bring joy to people who love racing!

Curious though, what is the general consenus on here about how many rental karts to have including spares

Just wanted to give you a reference point for cost. If you need any detailed budgeting I can help. I am a PM with one of the largest GCs in the state/country. We have offices in charlotte and Raleigh and work in the Triad all the time.

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Anyone tried to start a facility in NY/NJ? We have lots of people and few tracks. I suspect the main hurdle is getting permits and not getting noise complaints?

What does a facility need to to be successful, sales wise? How many butts need to go on rentals a day?

Well apparently having the best track in the nation isnt enough to keep afloat. I think staff and social media are crucial. X1 (formerly f1 boston) has the best track in the US (according to my friend who races all over the US) and they struggle with numbers. I think networking is crucial, and having lots/helpful staff is very important.

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