2 tracks in Leicestershire run stag and hen events. Karting works for these groups because everyone can do it and nobody needs to be good at it.
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.
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
Skegness, Lincolnshire
Kartworld Extreme Leisure is an outdoor kart circuit at Croft, on the southern edge of Skegness on the Lincolnshire coast. It runs petrol hire karts for the public, with adult drivers using OTK karts fitted with Honda GX270 engines.
Brandon, Grantham, Lincolnshire
PF International near Grantham is the longest circuit in this directory at 1,382 metres, and the only kart track in the UK holding a CIK-FIA International A Grade licence, which it achieved in 2011. Paul Fletcher established it in 1994 and it has been extended since.
Price not published
Ten on track at a time is common. A group of twenty means splitting into heats, which changes the shape of the day and usually the price.
Qualifying, heats and a final gives you a winner and a podium. Open sessions blur into one another and nobody remembers who won.
Most race formats need six or more. Below that you are booking arrive and drive whether you meant to or not.
A bar or restaurant on site keeps the group together. Without one the day ends in a car park.