Rental Karting in Belgium & Netherlands

Introduction

Indoor karting is more popular than ever. In the last few years we saw several new Indoor kartings in Belgium and more and more people start doing it as a competition sport, rather than just entertainment. Most people first experience it either as part of a teambuilding or kids birthday party or simply a group of friends having s small competition amongst each other, similar to going bowling or an escape room.

But some people want more after that first experience and will get hooked on the adrenaline of going as fast as possible without having to worry about speeding tickets. And then there is that natural competition urge of trying to be the best. At first you try to be the fastest of the session. next you attempt to make the Top 10 of the day, then the Top 10 of the week, and so on. But to get there takes lots of training and trying to learn from others how to get faster. If you really serious there are also some professional training available but the vast majority of those are targeted at children from 8-16 years old. But also here Google can help out: plenty of YouTube channels and videos teach karting techniques.

A great way for children and juniors to get into karting is to participate in a so-called 'karting camp' during school vacation. That way they not only get to experience karting but also get taught how to drive a kart properly (and safe) from the start. Ofcourse when they really like it they will want to come back for more and more :-) A couple of years ago only a few kartings offered karting camps and then usually only during summer vacation but these days there are plenty of kartings offering camps during all of the school vacations.

Belgium has many Indoor (and outdoor) kartings to choose from and Netherlands has even more. To find one near where you live, check out our map

Competition

If you already know the basics of karting and want to get more serious, you'll probably want to participate in one of the many karting championships or endurance races. There are a couple of different options to choose from:

• Individual Championship organized by your local Indoor karting.
• Endurance races organized by your local Indoor karting. For this you need a team of typically 2-4 people. Some are targeted as 'Fun' races, where the competition level is much lower than the 'Pro' races.
• Individual Championships with races in many different kartings (e.g. Formula Karting)
• Endurance Championships.

Unless you are already really good at karting, a good place to start is participating in one of the shorter Endurance races (2-3 hours) and preferable one targeted at 'beginners'. Even if you find yourself at the back of the pack, it is a great way to learn and get better quickly.

Most of the Individual Championships (including the 'Junior' Championships) are targeted at very experienced drivers and the level is typically very high. A good way to check what level you have reached so far is to compare your best laptime against the track record (although sometimes the 'Best of the month' time better represents what the top drivers can achieve on that track). If you are more than 3 secs slower than that record time, then look for 'Fun' Endurance races. If you get within 1-2 sec of that record time, then you can start thinking of participating in Individual Championships but don't expect to be competitive unless you can get within 0.5 secs of that record time.

Even in Junior races, the laptimes achieved can get very close to the track record or in some cases track records get broken during the race. Some races implement the 107 % rule that is also used in Formula 1: if you can't get within 107% of the pole time, you're not allowed to participate in the race. The reason is partly safety: if you are too slow, you'll get lapped quickly and might get bumped by the quicker drivers as they try to pass you while also fighting with the other drivers around them.

The video below gives an idea of the kind of level that is required to be competitive, in this case a race in the McChallenge Top Guns Championship @ Worldkarts Kortrijk