2 tracks in Leicestershire run grand prix events. The full race weekend in miniature: qualifying to set the grid, heats, then a final with a podium at the end.
Upper Broughton, Leicestershire
Nottingham Raceway is a 550-metre outdoor kart track at Upper Broughton in Leicestershire, just off the A46 and around 25 minutes from both Nottingham and Leicester. The circuit is wide enough to overtake properly, which is the main thing separating it from the indoor tracks in either city.
Price not published
Leicester
Stretton Circuit is a 950 metre outdoor track in rolling countryside on the edge of Leicester, built and extended over the years rather than laid out in one go. It weaves around banks, trees and buildings, with high and low speed corners, chicanes and hairpins, grass run-off, raised kerbs and tyre walls either side.
The thing that catches groups out. Below the minimum you either pay for absent drivers or book an open session instead.
Grantham, Lincolnshire
Ancaster Leisure is an outdoor multi-activity site at Wood Lodge near Ancaster, north-east of Grantham, where karting sits alongside paintball, airsoft, archery and laser tag. Its outdoor track can be run as a 1,200m International circuit, a 700m Brooklands layout or a 600m Club circuit, with a separate junior circuit and a small electric track for young children.
Newark, Nottinghamshire
ELK Motorsport runs an outdoor kart circuit on Drove Lane at Winthorpe, on the edge of Newark in Nottinghamshire. The circuit is 1,200m long.
Price not published
Lincoln
Gridline Racing is an indoor kart centre in a former cash-and-carry warehouse on Dunford Road, south of Lincoln city centre. It has been running since 2006 and, being indoors, operates whatever the weather.
Price not published
Towcester, Northamptonshire
Kart Silverstone is an outdoor kart circuit within the Silverstone motor racing complex on the Northamptonshire–Buckinghamshire border. The track can run in five layouts, the longest at 1,377 metres, and is built to FIA-CIK standards.
Ask how many laps the final is. A 30-lap final is a proper race; a 10-lap one is a sprint with ceremony attached.
Six drivers is typical. Some formats need ten or more to fill a grid properly.
Some tracks run junior versions of the same format at the same price. Others set race events at 14 or 16 plus.
Printed results and a podium are what people remember. Live timing screens make the qualifying session matter.