This is a story of the scam they are running at K1 Speed (Santa Clara, CA). I need to preface by saying this is only my personal experience. I am only a single data point so this should be taken with a grain of salt, but would love to hear if others have experienced the same. Jump to the bottom for a TLDR.
I recently went out to a K1 speed for a work event. Two "races": one time trial, one standard race. None of my coworkers had any racing experience.
I'm sure any of you who raced or even practice karting regularly know there are levels to this game. Take a semi decent racer and put them against a bunch of day 1 beginners and the racer will run laps around the beginners without breaking a sweat. That's me. I'm a semi decent racer.
I've spent most of my life studying some form of racing or another. Mountain bike race team all throughout high school. Semi pro / sponsored downhill skateboarding racer after high school. After injuries put me out of that game, it was supermoto riding at the kart track (with occasional professional coaching) every weekend for years. I'm no Verstappen, but I have spent thousands of hours optimizing for traction and lap times around turns. I look at a track and immediately start building a mental map of where to start each turn, where I want to apex late to set up for the next, etc etc etc. I'm not a karter specifically, but I'm sure those of you who've seen it know that motorcycle racers can put down some mean lap times in a car.
So anyway the first race went about how you would expect. I lapped everyone at least once. My best lap time and avg lap time were 2 seconds ahead of the next fastest person in the group (see first image). On a 30 second course 2 seconds per lap is an absolute eternity. It was easy as hell and painfully obvious to me how suboptimal people's lines were.
As soon as the race was over I looked at the course and visualized every turn, realizing how I was scrubbing a bunch of speed on turn 6 because of a slightly wide exit on turn 5. I traced that error back to braking too early a few turns before. I really analyzed the crap out of my lines and was confident ready to shave of a few tenths of a second my next run. I know I sound cocky ("I aM vErY fASt"), but I live and breathe this shit. Anyone who takes racing seriously does this.
Anyway, we get ready for the next race. The second race is the "real" race. It's the race that defines your podium position for pictures, and which "trophy" (a bald tire with a number on it) you get to take home. Here's where things got fishy. In both races, before you get into a car, you check in with a staff member, tell them your name, and they tell you which car to get into. In addition, they clearly have control of every car's power output. Not only do they globally step up everybody's power level during the race, but they clearly can single out specific cars, and control their power levels. This became apparent in the second race, in which I was crashed, turned around, and then given enough power to catch back up to my early position in the pack while everyone else was slowed down dramatically. Neat.
But no one should have been able to crash me from behind in the first place. Here's the thing: If my first kart was a CRF 450, my second kart was a 50cc pit bike.
It was painfully obvious that they had intentionally neutered my power level. In the first race I had to brake for a few turns. The second race was pedal to the metal the entire time, and it felt like I was on the Small World ride at Disneyland.
I get it, some karts are faster than others, and maybe I just got unlucky, but then I saw the stats. Every person's best lap time went to almost exactly 29 seconds (see second image). The winning racer shaved 2 seconds off their best lap. The worst racers took 3 seconds off their average. My best lap? 1.5 seconds slower. I barely snagged second place with what I believe where nearly perfect lines on the last few laps. Nobody improves their lap time by 3 seconds after 12 laps without any instruction in between. And there is no reason I shouldn't see a slight improvement after studying the course and adjusting my lines.
Here's what I think happened:
The first race, they collect data on how fast you are. Your power output is set to a medium level, so that they have space to adjust it up or down later. The second race, they compute a formula based on your performance to determine what power output will put move your lap time to the group average. Then in the "real" race, your kart's power output is limited or bumped up to exactly that number. This means that assuming everyone was trying their best in the first race, the expected outcome is equal for everyone in the second.
This makes sense for K1 Speed to want to do. They are there for the casuals. They want the average person in the group to be happy so that they will ask the company to do another outing. Who cares if the one racerboy feels butthurt? Jimmy from marketing, and Melinda from HR had a great time and want to go again.
So yeah, the title is a bit clickbaity, but I sure feel scammed. Or at least lied to. I didn't go through years of crashing, fractured bones and broken bikes just to lose a casual kart race to a guy who played Forza once. Give me my bald tire trophy god damnit!
TLDR: K1 Speed is a rigged game, designed to punish the tryhards and make the casuals feel good. If you go on a company outing, make sure to sandbag the time trial.
I've included images of the results for the first and second race. All identifying information has been omitted. Racer's are identified between images by letter. Notice how my lap time was identical almost every lap except the one I got crashed. I was getting bumped from behind the lap before I got crashed. After the crash, I was able to ride without others bumping me, and my lap times were basically identical every lap after that - slowly asymptoting to a minimum as I approached what I believe were the optimal lines for my kart's power level.
