Brentwood Karting — Attraction in Brentwood

Safety concerns! It was my 40th birthday and for some quality father, Son time I took my 8 year old son here for his very first go-Karting experience. Upon arrival I was surprised to find that we were just suited up and placed straight in to the go-karts, no face to face safety briefing. Considering I made it abundantly clear this was his first time ever in a go kart, I was then a little dubious that my son wasn't even given a 5 minute familiarisation with a go kart to get him used to the noise, vibrations, handling and steering etc. They just placed him in it and said that pedal to go and the other pedal to slow down and stop. The biggest concern however was when we sat in our go karts waiting in the pit lanes for the drivers on the track to finish. As they came off the track, they drove around to pull up behind us in the pit lanes. As the first driver did this (a young boy around 13 years old) accelerated instead of breaking and went straight into the back of my boys go kart, causing him neck pain. My son was shaken up before our race had even begun. It was clear the processes and control measures for segregating were ineffective. As were the vehicle pre-training / familiarisation for young new comers. Unfortunately the only safety measures in place were the standard online video and the typical 'if anything goes wrong it's your fault' declaration. I seriously hope this company come to realise before it's to late that an online video and declaration won't be worth a thing in court if there is a serious accident due to lack of suitable and sufficient control of risks on site. I also hope this first experience hasn't put my son off such activities...

Disappointing experience. Bit of background. We run semi pro group that we race around the south in weekly on various tracks so we have good picture around. It was our second visit here as previously we raced in full rain/storm conditions so it was competitive. So again this season we have booked 1hr event with short practise and two 25 min races. Kind of special out of regular format event.

Why day end up wrong.

Own cameras are banned and only hire is option. Pricing for hire is just rip off, it's like x10 times more than other tracks. £10 for each 10 min it's just wrong.

Poor karts. In short time space for me I have managed to break down on 1st kart just to run out of fuel on replacement kart. So not a lot of racing for me. But I wasn't the only one in group. A lot of guys end up swapping karts. Problem was lack of quality karts to replace so with 3 spares guys further down the road recived broken karts that where returned by previous driver.

Staff attitude in pits was more like I dont care.

For example swaping karts in Daytona takes maybe 20 sec and here it took around 188 according to my lap time. No kart ready in pit and just pointless conversation in pits.

Poor racing management. On 1st race after quali they haven't line us up correctly. We forced them to reconsider grid start.

On second race silimar story.

Also on timings some laps are just zeroed ruining race event concept or missed entirely as as turns out there is blind spot on finish line and when u go over wont register lap.

Overall no...

We visited Brentwood Karting to celebrate our daughter's 18th birthday with a family racing session. This worked out very well as the staff efficiently sorted us out with the right kit, took us through the briefing and led us out to the pits. Thankfully all of the gear felt well maintained and clean.

The karts themselves felt in good condition as well and soon we were unleashed onto the track. It wasn't quite clear if this was a warm-up, a qualification session or something else. But within a few laps the tyres were warm and it was clear that we were just going to keep racing for the next thirty minutes.

What was nice is that the marshals were alert and ready to assist but they didn't go crazy flagging violations or interrupting the flow of the session. With around twelve of us on the track there was plenty of overtaking action but you rarely felt blocked by the traffic. I have to say that when the chequered flag came down I was ready to stop though as the driving intensity is pretty relentless!

So we had a great session at Brentwood Karting with everyone enjoying themselves despite the disparity in speed. The only downside is that we couldn't get anything to eat or drink because the vending machine only takes coins and there was absolutely nowhere else to go. So take a picnic is my advice as we were pretty...