Don't Visit This Dangerous Go Kart Track (Berlin Kart)

So just behind me is Berlin Kart, which I believe is the largest indoor go-kart track in Berlin, coming in to 752 metres. And this is the reason why it sucks. The track spans over 10,000 square metres, which features 19 corners with one long straight and five mini sprints, with an average lap time taking around 1 minute and 15 seconds. But just because it's the longest track, it doesn't mean it's good quality. Now I don't want this video to seem overly negative, so here's a good point about the track. The sessions are pretty cheap, working out for 10 minutes on track for €13, then supplied with a timesheet after each session. Unless the printer runs out, which happened to me. Cool, so now that's over and done with, here's the bad points. The karts are solely RX-7s, but they've definitely seen better days. Now, I've driven karts before which visually don't look great, but because those karts were maintained on a regular basis, they performed amazingly well, so I'm not hung up about how it looks. However, with Berlin Kart, these machines feel like they're about to break apart, and a quick way to notice they're not having maintenance work done, is through the brakes. What myself and other guys on track kept experiencing was our karts skidding out, time and time again. But this wasn't a fault from the way we were driving. The brake pads had worn off so much, that the caliper itself was making contact with the brake disc. This results in you pressing down on the brake and nothing happens, then it makes contact and you suddenly lock up the rear wheels, resulting in you spinning from the rear. Oh come on! Now, racing can be dangerous, and some folk will happily say that's what makes it fun. But those risks of danger can be heavily reduced in the correct way, which is why go-karting businesses explain what the flags mean, supply safety equipment and have marshals around the track. So then it's all left to the driver taking the risks behind the wheel. Having brakes that don't function correctly at a go-kart track is mind-blowing to me. Even looking into the wheels, you can see the padding broken off and stuck onto the After spinning out or getting wedged into a barrier, I waited to be pushed out by a marshal. But no one ever came. Normally, if you spin or crash, a yellow flag is waved informing all drivers to slow to a walking pace, so then a marshal can safely walk out onto track and sort out the issue. As the driver, you remain in the kart and should never get out. This is because you can't control when the yellow flags are being shown, and if you are to get out and move the kart yourself, you're at risk of being hit by another driver. More so because you're wearing a helmet, meaning you can't see or hear that good. Plus the other karts haven't been warned of that yellow flag, meaning they won't slow down and could accidentally crash into you. So I waited and nothing happened. No flags were waved and no marshals in sight. They even have lights around the track being used for yellow flags and they never got used, so what's the point? I just had to sit there, wave to the other drivers so they could see me not to make contact, then whilst remaining in the kart, try to get myself out. But I'm not done yet! Speaking of the barriers, they have typical tyres bolted into the ground, but only on the corners on the inside. On the outside, it's just plastic tubes which aren't even fixed into place. I can even put my foot onto the tube to show you how loose it really was. It really seems to me that the guys who run this place don't care, that the whole place hasn't been cleaned in months, there's no air conditioning inside so all the fumes from the go-karts aren't being ventilated, even a chair with someone working on a bike and a TV are just sitting in the middle of the track. And on top of that, sometimes the staff will just jump into a kart and drive around for a couple of laps and not even wear a helmet. What is this guy doing? So with all those issues and especially my kart just not fully working, here's my attempt at a clean on-board lap. So if you are in Berlin and you do fancy go-karting, I don't recommend going to this place. Although it is cheap, this safety element for me is just a massive red flag. The fact that the barriers aren't proper, your go-kart is breaking away and if you do crash out the marshals, well, there isn't any. But that's it for this video, I hope you enjoyed it. If you want to see more go-karting videos and some better tracks to actually go visit, then click the video annotation at the bottom there. Or if you want to subscribe to this channel for more videos, then click the link at the very top there. But thanks very much for watching and I'll see you next time.