We constantly have a debate within the team about the best way to refer to the activities that we offer. Whilst the majority of our business involves drivers racing karts around our tracks and other circuits, we cannot agree on what it should be called. The majority of our customers phone us and ask for “karting” but we are concerned that people associate the term with all the things that we aren’t! We believe that people have a very different impression if you ask them to picture “karting” than if you ask them to visualise a visit to Daytona.
Since we opened our very first circuit in 1990 in London, we have always aimed to offer a unique experience. The obvious signs of our intent were in buying better race-suits than other circuits. We also made sure that the karts were light and nimble compared to many circuits offerings. But the really key difference was our attention to customer service and safety.
We have always aimed to over deliver when it comes to customer service and to ensure that we operate the safest circuits and events anywhere in the world. Our single biggest cost is our pay-roll. We employ 15 full-time engineers across the three venues. They are tasked to deliver evenly matched, well-maintained karts. In addition, our race marshals spend many hours every week jet-washing and cleaning every kart we own – that’s over 250 karts!
Whilst we always aim to give you the best karts possible, we also aim to ensure that your entire visit from start to finish is the best possible experience. We don’t always get it right but we enjoy a very healthy repeat business rate so we think that we get it right more often than not. If you disagree, then I would love to hear from you.
In the meantime, we still cannot agree as to what we should call our activities. Is it karting, go-karting, kart-racing or something else?
Jim Graham
Team Daytona