If you are thinking of opening a go-kart rental business, no doubt one of the first questions you ask yourself is: is an indoor or outdoor kart track better? The answer depends on several factors. If you are a kart driver, it depends on a personal preference, but if you are a rental kart business person, there are certainly many more things to consider. To build a rental kart track - whether indoor or outdoor - you need a large area able of accommodating a fleet of rental karts, sufficient to make the challenges on the track exciting and compelling. But other than the space, what are the pros and cons of indoor and outdoor go-kart tracks? Here are all the answers you are looking for!

Indoor kart track: pros and cons

If you have decided to opt for an indoor go-kart rental track - or if you already own an indoor space to open your business - you should know that, to set up a good centre, you need an area of at least 4,000 square metres, which can accommodate, in addition to the track, all the necessary services both for customers (such as, for example, a bar area or a changing room) and for the go-karts (a box area, dedicated to the maintenance of your rental karts).

Choosing to opt for an indoor kart track certainly has its advantages, the main ones of which are undoubtedly:

-    Independence from weather conditions Whether it is sunny, rainy, very hot or extremely cold, an indoor karting track ensures that you can always accommodate your customers, providing them with exciting challenges on the rental karts, without having to face this unpredictable variable.
-    Reduced maintenance costs Here again, weather is a discriminating factor. Having an indoor karting track reduces the weather exposure. This means lower maintenance for your track. In addition, the track of an indoor track is bordered by crash-absorbing barriers and has no escape routes, so the need for periodic maintenance of the facility is less frequent. Usually action is only taken, in a timely manner, when damage to the barriers is found.
-    Extend your track If the area in which you have decided to open your indoor karting activity is at least 5 metres high, you can extend the length of the track with multilevel paths. This, in addition to increasing the surface area of the track, allows you to have a unique feature compared to outdoor kart tracks.
However, opening a business in the world of kart hire, focusing on an indoor kart track, can also have cons:

-    Limited spaces Generally, this type of activity is carried out in pre-existing building, which were not built specifically to create a kart track inside. Space in these facilities is usually quite limited, so much so that in most indoor centres, the tracks do not even reach one kilometre in length. Similarly, the limited area leads to tracks that are generally rather narrow and bending, which make overtaking complicated and offering little enjoyment to those customers who hang out at them.
-    - Activity limited to rental karts Choosing for an indoor track means limiting your activity to the world of rental karts. If you wish to open the doors of your centre also to the world of racing karts, in fact, you need a much larger surface area and much more than the approximately 4,000 square metres mentioned above, given that these vehicles’ requirements provide they are unable to compete on circuits with barriers all along the track but require wide escape routes.
-    Track maintenance expenses The decision to build an indoor kart track put owners facing with initial and fixed maintenance costs. First and foremost, indoor kart tracks with combustion-powered rental karts require an air recirculation system that must be constantly kept clean and functional. Indoor kart tracks, then, require routine maintenance costs, in addition to track and barrier repair costs. This also includes the maintenance of the track itself, which must be periodically cleaned of the rubber which remains on the resin of the track.  
-    Absence of escape routes One of the peculiar characteristics of indoor tracks is the almost total absence of escape routes. This lack, due to the limited space of indoor centres, leads to the need for periodic checks of the omega and external protections of the vehicles making up the fleet, which are more likely to be damaged due to collisions with other rental karts and barriers, especially on narrow and bending tracks, which may damage components such as the steering columns and tie rods. Except for these borderline cases, however, Viper Kart rental karts generally require very little routine maintenance, limited to periodic checks as indicated by the manufacturer. Tyres, on the other hand, if they are of good quality, can be used for hundreds of hours before being replaced.

Outdoor kart rack: pros and cons

Alike for indoor tracks, also in the case of outdoor go-kart tracks, the main thing to be taken into consideration is the space needed to create a good centre combining fun and safety (which is also one of the three keystones of Viper Kart projects: read more on the dedicated website pages: Safety, Functionality and Production). In contrast to indoor tracks, in the case of outdoor tracks, the area required to build a circuit must be much larger. The main reason for this is related to the fact that, when one decides to open an outdoor kart track, the objective is generally to expand the offer not only to rental karts, but also to racing karts. To do this, however, it is necessary to adopt solutions that can ensure both a good welcome and the right structure for customers (such as, for example, the paddock or escape routes), as well as create a track allowing racing karts to express their potential and that, for this reason, is at least one kilometre long. All these conditions lead to the need to consider an area of at least 20,000 square metres, i.e. approximately five times larger than the one required for an indoor karting activity. 

Again, there are several pros and cons to consider. Let us start with the favourable aspects:

- Opening up to racing kart As mentioned, choosing for an outdoor track allows to have a wider ‘market’. An outdoor go-kart track, in fact, may guarantee (if space permits) a commercial opening to the world of racing karts, thus securing a wider number of clients. 
- More attractive location In top-level motorsports, the main competitions are held outdoors. Choosing to build an outdoor track, therefore, can certainly be a solution to ‘attract’ customers who want to feel like real drivers by racing on tracks similar (with long straights, sweeping curves, bends...) to those on which top-motorsport drivers race.

As well as for indoor tracks, outdoor tracks also have cons. Among these, the main ones are:

-    Dependence on weather Weather conditions are undoubtedly the main thing to consider. When it rains or in colder seasons, it is very likely that customers are less inclined to attend track sessions. In this case, unlike on indoor tracks, compensating for this variable is practically impossible.
-    More track maintenance required It goes without saying that an area of 20,000 square metres (the area required for an outdoor track) is more expensive to maintain than an area of 4,000 square metres (the standard for an indoor track). But that's not all, because an outdoor track practically always has large green areas that also need regular maintenance. So, this is therefore not a one-off maintenance to be carried out when breakdowns occur, but a fixed cost to be expected and considered in the business plan.
-    Periodic Fleet Checks Although, as mentioned, the karts in the Viper Kart line require very little routine maintenance, generally limited to cleaning the karts and scheduled engine maintenance (such as oil changes or clearance checks) recommended by the manufacturer, the exposure of the rental kart fleet to atmospheric agents, or more simply to sand or mud on the escape path, makes it necessary to constantly check certain parts. Among these, the most important checks are on the throttle cables, the joints, the bearings, the engine air filters and the chain. Such operations, in the case of indoor kart tracks, are almost non-existent.

Conclusion: better indoor or outdoor karting track?

So, is it better to open an indoor kart track or an outdoor kart track? The final answer is only one: it depends. First of all, on availability. If you already have an outdoor lot, large enough to accommodate a go-kart track, the most sensible choice is to build an outdoor track. On the other hand, if you have a building or, more generally, an indoor facility large enough to accommodate a track, the best choice is to opt for an indoor karting track. However, nowadays, there is no shortage of solutions that we can define as ‘hybrid’ and that include both an indoor and an outdoor track in the same centre. Undoubtedly, from a management (and economic) point of view, this option is by far more challenging, but at the same time it makes it possible to satisfy the needs of all kart drivers who want to test themselves in the world of rental karting.