Complaint Review: K1 Speed

I was very excited to hear K1 Speed was opening a new location near my work in Torrance, CA. I took my girlfriend there after work on a Monday night at 8pm. The cashier told us there would be less than a 40 minute wait to race so we bought two of their "3 Ride Specials" for $40 each. Unfortunately, we didn't get to ride until 10:30 pm (more than 1-1/2 hours "LONGER" than we were told we would need to wait) and then they closed the place. They wouldn't give us a refund on our unused rides and told us to "just race again another day." I wouldn't have purchased that many races had they not said I could use the tickets that night.

In the 2-1/2 hours they had me there, I had plenty of time to discover the false advertising on K1 Speed's website. K1 Speed claims that their track is "1/3 Mile Long." This is a lie and I can prove it. The red and white barriers that go around the track are each three feet long and I had the time to measure them. There are 399 barriers outlining the track and I had time to count them. This means that their "1/3 Mile Track" is actually only 1,197 feet long. A 1/3 mile track is 1,760 feet long. Their track is actually 123 feet shorter than a 1/4 mile (or just over 1/5 mile long) and is about 68% of the size they claim it to be. They also say that their karts go over 45 mph. They might to ABLE to go 45 mph but not on this narrow, short track so that is also very misleading. You can easily do the math yourself by taking the average lap time on their 1,197 foot track (FYI their posted "fast lap time" was 31 seconds per lap). Traveling 1,197 feet in 31 seconds means that the fastest drivers only average 26 mph.

If I could've raced like they promised that night, I wouldn't have had the time to count and figure all of this stuff out (while I was sitting around bored stiff). I actually felt sort of sorry for the poor managers who were also out on the track with the other employees dealing with the broken down cars each race. In every race we saw that night, at least one broken car had to be swapped out for a working one. I heard one of the managers complaining about the karts being old and coming from their other locations. These many break downs are probably why it took so long for us to finally race. K1 Speed closes at 10pm but they were running so behind that they had to stay open late just to give the people (like us) at least one race. After our race, the manager shouted, "Sorry, that's it, we're closed!" Needless to say, I will not be going back to claim my unused rides.

K1 Speed's standard race is 14 laps like they say BUT that's only for the person in first place. Once the winner crosses the finish line, the race is over whether you got all 14 laps or not. If you are unlucky enough to get behind a slow or stuck driver, you are out of luck becuase there's very little ability to pass on their narrow track (unless they flag the slow driver to the side). They sell a 14 lap race for $20. Fourteen laps may sound like alot of racing but since the laps are only about 30 seconds long, it means you are spending $20 for about 7 minutes (in my case, it turned out to be $80 for my girlfriend and I to race one 7-minute race.)

In my opinion, it's worth the drive to race to Dromo One in Orange, California. I strongly encourage everyone to investigate K1 for yourself because it you do, you will see that everything I wrote here is absolutely true. My prediction is that once you go to K1 Speed in Torrance, it will be the last time you go to K1 Speed in Torrance.

GoCartDriver
Orange, California
U.S.A.