TeamSport Go Karting Birmingham — Attraction in Sandwell

Marshals were not paying attention to what was happening on track, which ended up causing an accident severe enough where my wife had to leave the kart at the scene.

We were put into a group with members who were hyper aggressive, constantly bumping into others (which the briefing states deserves a black flag), not respecting yellow or reds, nor slowing down when an accident has happened in front of them.

In our first session, with all the kart bumping and being sent into the barriers by members, my friend ended up in the barrier at the section just before the ramp to the top section which wasn't noticed for well over 30 seconds, which was a dangerous situation. There's a marshal post at that section, but no marshal there actually watching.

In session 2, I personally tried to avoid crashing into one of the member drivers who was in the barrier, only to then be hit from behind anyway and sent into them again by one of the members because they didn't care someone was in the barrier. Even though it was red flagged, a member still went steaming past multiple drivers 20+ seconds after the red flag was flown, but again not seen nor actioned against (or seen and ignored).

Not a minute later, after green, a driver pitted himself on the top section, yellow thrown, my wife has seen this and slowed down. Driver cleared, green thrown, seconds later, my wife is sent into the barrier again by another driver. Yellow thrown again with my wife now stationary for multiple seconds, but now two member drivers have physically crashed into my wife one after another with enough force for this accident to have been heard from inside the bar (as mentioned by a female worker when later attending to my wife). Even though this accident was pretty severe with my wife stationary against the barrier, the Marshall only red flagged once asking if my wife is okay and if she could continue on, to which she stated she was hurt and couldn't continue.

The only way they could have crashed that hard into her is that they didn't slow down for the previous yellow before, because there wouldn't have been enough time to get back up to full speed with how quickly it went to green and back to yellow. The first driver to crash into her continued on as it was yellow, with the other stationary next to her. Neither driver were spoken to by the marshals (or at least the one now at the bottom of the ramp as I had full view of this section with being stationary by the pits, and it eventually went green once my wife was helped off track, and the kart removed).

There's clearly zero regard for the rules nor safety at this track. Many of the members should have been given a black flag for multiple reasons during the sessions, but they didn't at all.

A good track layout ruined by subpar marshalling and long...

Fun, but overpriced, tedious and poorly planned.

Go karting really is fun, but the whole process is so tedious.

They expect you to arrive 45 mins before your actually meant to race, in order to get your overalls, helmet and also watch the safety video which you have to watch if you haven't been in over a year. The video is common knowledge, and anyone who's done karting more than once will know what the flags mean, yet I've had to watch that video a good 8 times over the years.

Your then always late onto the track, despite getting there 45 mins early. It always drags over.

Then you spend 10 minutes sitting in your Go kart while the instructors check everyone's kart.

Once you finally get on the track, it really can be fun, but if you go on a busy day, its completely ruined by the amount of people.

The track is small, yet they allow for 14 people to be on a track at once, which in my opinion is wayyy too much. I seem to remeber it only being 12 a few years ago, which is still way to much, however I may be wrong.

It makes overtaking incredibly tedious due to the tracks narrow width, as well as ruins your best lap due to the higher risk of people spinning out.

Unless everyone there is some what experienced, its common for people to spin out, leading to a yellow flag which causes you to come to a crawling pace.

This happend almost every lap when I went, leading to a miserable experience, where every run was ruined. This isn't hate directed at the people spinning out, i do it myself sometimes, but if you have 14 people on a track its much more likley to happen.

You then come back to the pits, wait around until they clear you to get out of the kart, and then wait a good 30 minutes before going onto the track again.

Everytime I have been there's always been one person in the group who had an issue with their kart also, the things are not very well maintained.

This is what ruins karting for me, in the 2 hours you roughly spend there, only 1/4 of the time is spent actually in the go Kart.

The price is also too steep, £43.30 for 30 minutes of karting is a rip off, plain and simple. You will also need a balaclva which will set you back £3 if you dont own one.

Overall it can be fun, but i think the more you go the more you realize how poorly ran the whole process is.

My biggest advice would be to go on a weekday during a quite time, and bring as many freinds as possible. Going on a weekend is a recipie for a bad...

Great track and great kart but never managed to get a single lap as the employee’s wouldn’t know who to kick off the track for bad driving I saw a person fail the break test 10+ times and they were still allowed to drive however when my cousin was spun out by a crap driver they gave my cousin a black flag and kicked him out and the driver was not affected who caused the problem and he was not even of age for being on the track however he was a premium member with a special seat this is why the staff never kicked him off and we would’ve expected a refund as we didn’t get to finish a full race without a amber light and often times when a yellow light appeared the staff didn’t know what for and weather there was even a crash also once I was spun out by another driver I tried to signal the staff however they were all looking the other way I had to make my own way out of the crash and after I resolved the problem then the staff decided to look in my direction and when I came here the first time there was less staff and they managed us way better as it was not my cousins fault for being spun out he tried to explain this to the staff and when he did they Ignored him and walked off when he asked for a refund she swore at him with her middle finger in the air whilst walking off I don’t know weather it is permitted by teamsport or if it was only her to be like this but if I owned this location of teamsport I would fire her immediately also whilst my cousin was being break checked by the staff he let go off his accelerator and pressed his brake and the staff signaled him to drive on but never move as she didn’t move my cousin also took his feet of both pedals for sum reason the go kart moved forward without throttle and the staff told him off for this after the race another driver not from our group came to speak to us and said he saw my cousin take both feet off the pedals and the kart roll forward without a trigger I don’t really know weather the staff had a bad day or weather they are naturals at being bad employees however after this experience I would definitely recommend people to sway away from visiting this track unless they intend on not doing a single lap properly sorry for making you read so long and thank you for reading for this long we were the ones in a group of 7 if you were there that day. I would definitely give minus stars if that was an option but unfortunately that...