LeMans Karting with the kids

This past Sunday, Kim and I took the kids to LeMans Karting in Fremont and they had a great time. Check out the pictures here. The program is a new experiment for LeMans as I understand it. Previously they had a 30 minute class and then let the kids loose on the course. The new program is two hours long and consists of a 30 minute class with a test followed by ~60 minutes on the track with a walk of the course, individual, and group driving. Lastly a sprint race and a pizza lunch to finish it off. During one of track sessions, the instructors pulled a kid off the course and removed him from the class since he just did not have the skills to command his kart. I was pretty jazzed to see that they wanted to have decent drivers rather than just anyone willing to pay the entrance fee. Kim and I spent some time chatting with Rick, who owns LeMans with his wife, June. I walked away with the feeling that this is both a business and a passion of Rick's which is great to see.

For those of you not familiar with this type of go-karting, this is a very different animal than the regular go-karts you may have ridden previously in your misspent youth. These karts will hit 40MPH on the straights if you can set up for the turns correctly. Some of you have been to the old SpeedRing in Santa Clara (maybe even with me!), and this is close but those karts were ~6hp and the LeMans karts are ~9hp. The class was only for kids so Kim and I did not get to drive, (though Kim really wanted to do it). They were booked up for about the next 7 hours after we finished the class so we passed on doing a "family run" but will be back one weeknight evening to try our luck.