A state-of-the-art Go-kart facility is poined to open in Kelowna.
Kelowna Karting is poised to open its doors.
The fully electric karts are ready to speed around two tracks built inside the 44,000 sq. ft. former home of Campion Marine.
"We're really excited to finally open the doors to Kelowna," said owner Scott Hargrove who got behind the wheel to show us what the karts are capable of.
"They'll go 60 kilometres an hour," he said after putting a kart through its paces around the tight corners of the indoor track.
"I wanted to make the track as challenging as possible. So we have a lot of corners. There is a fairly long straight where you can get the carts up to a fairly high speed, but you have to be willing to go through the corners quick in order to get to that high speed."
Hargrove said that makes it fun for both the novice and the more experienced racer.
When the facility is up and running, as many as 10 karts can race at once.
And while ten karts race, the other ten can charge, so there's never a delay.
When Kelowna Karting opens Saturday, Kelowna will be the smallest population centre in the country to have a facility of this kind.
But Hargrove believes it will work.
"Some might call me crazy, but I believe the Okanagan is ready for this. The response has been phenomenal," he said.
"I think it's going to be a big hit with the locals and tourists alike."
Hargrove is relieved to see opening day finally arriving after months of preparation.
"We've been working flat-out here. Six months, 12-14 hours a day every single day to make this happen and here we are," he said, "finally at the finish line."
Hargrove is a professional auto racer himself and he owns and operates his own kart racing team that competes all over North America, so he knows the game.
The karts are set with maximum speeds designed to keep drivers safe with only advanced drivers gaining access to full racing speeds.
"You have to prove yourself to be able to unlock that," explained Hargrove.
"They're the fastest electric karts that we could buy."
The cost is between 20 to 30 dollars for each ten-minute go, depending on how much racing you want to do.
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