TeamSport Go Karting Reading — Attraction in Reading

I visited on 27th December for an adult session with my husband, brother and teenage son. It was my first time in over 20 years and I was really looking forward to it. The other 3 came last Christmas and my son even had his birthday here back in May so I wasn't expecting such a negative experience this time around. We had a session with a group of 8 other men, so it was busy, but they looked to have been before as a few came with their own helmets and cameras. I thought it would be a friendly, but competitive couple of rounds amongst the two groups, but came away injured after being rammed more times than I can remember. Whilst I accept that this happens and not all bumps can be helped, we were all given very clear instructions after a 'bumpy' first round that we needed to make sure we had enough time to react if we needed to stop. I was called into the pits twice, one on each session as I needed a bit of guidance on corners and breaking a bit earlier and also to check if I was ok after a fairly big bump from behind. These were completely fair and I took that on board and genuinely tried when I joined back in. I may have been a little bit slower than the more experienced on the track, but it felt like I should have been at the fair on the dodgems, rather than go-karting. Now I could have easily missed this, but I didn't see any of the men that were clearly not adhering to the rules, get pulled into the pits. I am so gutted that this treat with my family was such a poor experience. I expected to come away buzzing like my family have done in the past, but we all left feeling really deflated. We were offered money back and a voucher for a new session but as of yet, we haven't seen either. What has upset me more than anything is the pain I'm now on one side of my neck due to the stupidity of others on the track with a clear disregard for the rules. We all want to enjoy it and I get it can be frustrating having others on the track that aren't quite equal in level, but this could have all been avoided if there was intervention earlier. I saw a red light at one point and came to a pretty quick stop so it's definitely possible for others to do this too. How can so many grown men not do the same rather than slamming into me several times.

The staff were very friendly and I do think they felt bad, but this has left me hurting physically and feeling cross that the other drivers didn't seem to be pulled up on their disregard for the rules. I can't say that I'd want to return after this.

EDIT: a month on and after chasing once already, still no...

Went go karting for the first time there on Saturday 8th of April and had a good time overall, however not the best experience. The woman at the reception Zoe was incredibly helpful and friendly - we were off to a very good start there. I found the instruction video too much with an absolute overload of information. For someone who has never done go karting before, it was just too much to remember and take in. The video talked a lot about the different colour flags and lights to watch out for - which was the key message for everyone's safety to ensure noone got hurt. However the lights shown in the video were very different from the lights on the actual racing track. When we stated driving, I was shocked by how difficult it was to turn the wheel - noone warned us about that. So I was on a bend, trying my best to turn when I hear someone shouting 'Stop, stop!'. I immediately stop and then I see this young woman with long brown hair running at me. She lifts my visor and absolutely SCREAMS at me for not stopping when the lights were red. I wanted to explain to her that I just started driving and I wasn't expecting the wheel to be so stiff and quite frankly I didn't even see the lights because I was looking for the lights like there were in the video, I didn't realise the lights on the actual track were different to the video - again we weren't told/showed that. Also, I was on a bend and there were no lights on that bend, only after the bend. But I couldn't get a word out because of how shocked I was by her shouting at me. I know she needed to be loud for me to hear her all the engines running, but she wasn't just loud, she was incredibly annoyed and angry at me. I nearly cried, that's how much she upset me. I 100% understand the importance of safety in this setting, but I think the way this was handled was completely unprofessional. If she was worried that I don't understand the rules, she should have asked me to go back into one of the meeting rooms and go over the rules with me again - not shout and scream in my face like I'm some sort of idiot. Made me feel very belittled. The rest of the staff looking after us that day were great and very accommodating. Overall, once I got the hang of the driving, I had fun, although I was annoyed that I was screamed on for not stopping on red, when the majority of people were driving fast on yellow and overtaking and didn't get told off by anyone at all. I understood that yellow meant driving at a walking pace and no overtaking - very few people followed that and yet they...

I wanted to just take a few moments to thank the team at TeamSport who assisted us for our Social Club event on Thursday 21st August.

All the team members were fantastic, bubbly and clearly love their jobs. Nothing was too much of an issue for the food and bar team (Alexis and Gracie) although the fizzy drink machine decided to have an early night, they didn’t let this sway things and still provided everyone with the drinks they wanted. We also ordered a lot of food, all of which came out in quick succession and was made to a marvelous quality and an additional thank you for helping us drop our bar tab down to nearly zero 😊 Massive thank you to Race Director Thomas for the photos he took of our group, everyone has enjoyed seeing themselves on the grid ready for racing; which has been posted on our internal company pages. It is the little things like this which make the overall event stand out to our members. Another massive thank you for the other Race Director, Nico for your help keeping everyone organized and allowing one of our karters, who qualified on pole to start at the back and make their way through the pack to win. (They wanted more of a challenge 😃). We purchased the onboard race footage for this epic race which will be going up on my personal YouTube channel Cozza’s Adventures early October – feel free to subscribe to me, you will notice TeamSport Reading has appeared on my channel a few times before. Yet another outstanding thank you to all the track staff on the night, Alfie, Forest, Rob, Sahib and Stephanie, although I didn’t see many of you, you all kept the racing safe and this was a massive peace of mind for someone who was nervous to get into the kart! I may not have shown it, but I was very nervous but knowing you lot were around the track if I or anyone needed assistance was fabulous. Our members are already requesting that we go back to TeamSport next year, so with that, I look forward to working with you all again...