Octane Raceway

Reviews 3

FE

Felis Felidae

Please allow me to express an equal review here. 1) Great for Kids - Outstanding attention. My two kids love the place!! My 10 year son was there yesterday for his BD and he learned how to be more effective driver while steering those newer karts (Kind of hard to manipulate on this newer equipment). The attitude and sense of urgency on the track employees is great. I cannot express how satisfied I am with this Octane Team. Please continue the soft skills training on your staff, your customers appreciate it. 2) I have 6 big observations for the adult racing speed setup: A. The track has a good technical design but I noticed that most of the people that race here do not understand the "No Bumping" rule. It is clear that the track has three effective areas where passing is easier. However, I can see that because most of the track is narrow, people do not calculate the right times to pass. And slower people do not allow you to move forward. B. This track needs to modify its design for the sake of all levels of racers - I noticed that there is a space close to the next door store that can be utilized for track expansion and hope that this extra space can help to modify the track for easier passing. Let me put it like this. The current track is like racing at Monaco (It requires to be a skilled driver to become successful but rocky drivers will stop the race all the time because of crashes and spins). Monaco is a GREAT CIRCUIT but it is not for everyone. We need a Circuit of las Americas type. Wider and plenty of room for better racers to use when needed. C. I saw the track staff being confused 50% of the time due to the outside tent and inside track view staff member. It happened to me twice, that I was able to anticipate an accident like .5 seconds before occurring in the hair pin by the outside track portion. The crash involved 3 drivers and I was able to miss all three and came down to stop some centimeters before touching the last kart. I was told "Not to Bump". I was not involved at all, actually I prevented a more massive hit. Second incident in same portion of the track an about same situation - I was given a blue flag. My perception is that there has to be one staff member in that area looking for two things (bad drivers and rescuing stranded crash victims). I observed this track area for 30 minutes after my race was over and saw that this modified hair pin is the source of many incidents. Please dedicate a staff member to this location. D. Please implement a no closing the door rule for the slower drivers. I was about to pass slower drivers many times and some will zig-zag to prevent me to move forward until I actually used one of the three easier pass points. E. There is no chance to warm up the tires in the first lap. We need more speed to collect some heat on the rubber. F. I think it would be great to add sector times in the timesheets results. That can help to understand and to enjoy the visit to Octane. Over all - Track is great for experienced drivers but because there is always someone newer, please expand the track width in order to prevent sacrificing lap times and rubber heat. Something that I miss about the old octane is the track width available for passing and the dedicated room for safety training video. I think it will be great to publish something like the following in the front lobby: "The quickest and gentle driver is always the winner not the most aggressive" Thank you for reading - SandCat

BG

BG M

Before I proceed, let me explain that my wife and I were regulars at the old Octane Raceway in Phoenix (loved it) and we are both karting enthusiasts. Positives: the facility is nice—great place to hold a team building event or a conference if you don’t want to bore your guests to death. The location is convenient, and if you’ve never been in a kart, you’ll have a great time. The Sodi GTX is a versatile kart platform; power output can be electronically adjusted (on the fly) to accommodate pilots of different skill levels and ages. Negatives: Considering the power that the karts are dialed to, the track is not very interesting. It feels like a competent track designer was consulted, and when the insurance risk assessor did the numbers, a decision was made to dial the power on the karts back to a point where ambulance chasers wouldn’t have a case during litigation. The outside canopy section of the track (after the back straight with the pseudo-turns) is fairly technical, and it could be a ton of fun in a kart that makes more power, but it just doesn’t work with the karts dialed down the way they are today. The safety briefing that was mandatory at the old track for new drivers has been replaced with a short video that is viewed in the pits once you’re already in the kart; not unlike going to a theme park and having the nice lady remind you to keep your hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times during the ride. It’s essentially background noise. I watched a few races prior to jumping in for the first time, and I noticed that the turtle flag was not being waived when it should have been, and when it was waived, inexperienced drivers didn’t understand what it was. If you don’t understand flags, you have no business being on a race track (even a beginner/recreational track.) I also noticed that many of them didn’t grasp the difference between a race track and bumper cars and seemed to think that the barriers were meant to be slammed into at every opportunity. The Sodi GTX system (as deployed by Octane) has made the experienced track marshal a relic of the past. On the formation lap, the karts are limited to a crawl (making it impossible to get heat in the tires) during a caution flag, power is electronically limited to that of the formation lap; same deal with the cool down lap. I witnessed what should have been a caution lap (driver hit a barrier, and moved the poorly-shored plastic track barrier a few feet) and the track marshal turned all of the karts off, and kicked the driver out of the facility before restarting. Verdict: unless Octane decides to dial the karts to full power (which would require mandatory safety briefings and something other than putting children and adults in different classes) I think I speak for the local karting community in saying I’ll spend my weekends at PKRA in a TAG kart until Octane gets their act together. As alluded to earlier, if you’re looking for a great weekend outing with the grandkids, Octane is for you.

JO

Jordyn Pike

I wish I could leave negative stars. Our first race was fun although Victor, the track boy, stop 2 of us and said no bumping, which is totally fine, it was unintentional, we were just trying to get around each other. (mind you, we are all racing around a track with many turns, odds are we are going to bump into someone...) The first race was over and we all went to get our first drink with our wristbands (wristbands granted us 2 drinks) and waited for our next turn. A few other friends that werent racing met us there and hung out at the bar until our last lap was over (i say this because we had friends SPENDING MONEY AT THEIR BAR because of us). It was time for our second race and IMMEDIATELY Victor came on the speaker and said "there will be 0 warnings in this race". Correct me if im wrong but we felt that was a little dramatic. Victor was so mad we bumped each other. THIS WAS NOT A CRASH OR A SLAM, BUT A SIMPLE BUMP TRYING TO PASS SOMEONE. Also, the ENTIRE race was our group aside from 2 other adults. THERE ARE NO CHILDREN ON THE TRACK or random people we are passing. Race 2 starts and Victor immediately had the intentions of us not finishing the race. About 2 laps in, he shut off all the cars and kicked 1 of our buddies out. I agree there was a hit that was rough so kicking this person out was totally understandable, and no one fought him about it, we all just laughed at our friend, but as our friend was leaving the track Victor proceeded to kick 5 more of us out!... and we still have NO IDEA WHY. He made me breath into a breathalyzer which i did with zero complaints, I asked him why he was shaking so badly and his response was "because im so heated"... he was literally trembling with rage trying to pull this breathalyzer out. He made everyone on our half of the track leave because i guess guilty by association, he didnt even finish getting a reading on me. We complained to Brianna and she was sweet as Pie and needs to be the new manager because she was very apologetic and concerned for us. The manager was supposed to call us with a refund but never did. We called back a few days later and his response was "after watching the footage we all left the track VOLUNTARILY, Victor didnt kick us out so we cant have a refund, oh and he didnt appreciate our yelp review (which they deleted)". HAHAHA yes, i volunteered to leave the race early just so i could talk to Brianna asking to race again while the rest of our friends finished the race. Sure JP and Rich, cause that sounds logical. Myself and the rest of our 12 friends that were there will never be returning to your track with your rude, "heated" employees that all need lessons in customer service. get these guys jobs that dont involve working with people if they are going to get that "heated". Maybe they can be the kart cleaners or something.