The next track that we were fortunate enough to visit was Pitt Race in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Now we had a 15-hour road trip from Orlando, and we drove it on the Monday after the SKUSA Pro Tour event, towards Pittsburgh, and we were greeted with an amazing facility.
If you want to go racing in the South of Florida, the AMR Motorplex is located just outside of Miami. Homestead (previous name of AMR Motorplex) has been around for quite some time and it's in an old NASCAR car park. Directly across from the kart racing facility is the Homestead NASCAR circuit where they hold the NASCAR races at.
Tire management is something drivers don’t always think about, but it plays a big role in the results. Now a lot is determined by how hard or how soft the compound of tire that you're driving on. It also has a lot to do with the track surface itself, so whether it's abrasive or it's a smooth surface and the temperature of the day does have a bit to play with how tires are going to wear.
We pay a lot of money for our race tires, and we pay a lot of money to get a good engine. We buy brand new go-karts, and we still find ourselves finishing in the middle of the pack. We're now wondering to ourselves, "Well, we've got all the equipment, we are getting coaching, and we still can't move up the pack. What can it be?"
We discuss the pros and cons of data analysis in this blog. Now, technologies improved a lot over the last five, 10 years, and when I was winning all my races in the 2005, 2015 era, we didn't really look a lot into data analysis. It just wasn't something that technology was up to scratch with.
The United States is a hotbed of not just racing talent, but also prestigious and iconic racing tracks. Karting also contributes to this by having challenging and technical circuits to race on. In this article, we will cover five of the most technical circuits in the USA.
We’re going to look at the three biggest mistakes that beginners make in kart racing. As we know, kart racing can be quite daunting. You've just gone out, bought a brand new package, and you don't really know what to do. So, when you go to the track, what are the three key areas that you can improve on when you start in kart racing?
The fifth track that we ventured out to was the Nola Motorsport Park in New Orleans. This is probably one of the biggest facilities, especially from a kart and motor racing facility that I've been to in the USA. Nola Motor Sports Park has a huge motor racing circuit there, but also have the driver training facility kart racing circuit and rental karts. The paddock space in between the car racing & kart racing paddock, it's just monumental! A big facility that offers a bit of everything for, for everyone. If you're the recreational karter, you can go rental karting and you're driving on half of the NOLA Kart circuit which is an impressive layout for rental karting.
Houston Speed Sports Park in Houston, Texas, was the next track we ventured to on our USA Road trip. This was on the back of our blog where we had a last-minute trip to Atlanta Motor Sports Park. Then we thought far where else can we go? So, we ended up driving about another 15 hours out to Houston. Pretty boring drive on the way there. We travelled through I think it was Louisiana, Alabama and down the south parts of the United States.
The next circuit we’re looking at in our USA Track review is Atlanta Motor Sports Park in Dawson, Georgia. So the track itself is a private club and it shares the facility with a car racing track. So, it's not something that you can just rock up with your car in the back of a truck or a van and just go and drive the facility. You must be a member, which I think costs around $2,000 - 3,000 for the year. A little bit more expensive than most of the facilities that we'll be discussing on our as American kart tracks, but once you experience the facility you can see the value for money!
The next track we are reviewing is the GoPro Motorplex Circuit in Charlotte, North Carolina. The facility is world-class with state-of-the-art lighting allowing this circuit to be used all day and into the evening. With motor racing being such a big part of the town, it’s common to see Indy Car, Nascar and Sprint Car drivers on track during the week honing their skills. Drivers such as Will Power, Scott Mclaughlin, Jimmie Johnson, and Kyle Larson have been present on practice days which is something that the local club racers get the privilege to share the track with at the same time.
We're going to try and do a miniseries & talk about some USA kart tracks. How to get involved in some of these different facilities around the country, but also just giving it a review on what we thought it was like driving at these places, who we drove for when we leased some kart packages, and just a general sense on what it's like to race at these tracks.
