Children from as young as four are allowed on the baby karts as long as they are of a certain height and are able to touch the pedals, said Mr Lee, adding that he hopes more fun kart drivers make the switch to race kart driving so that the motorsport scene in Singapore becomes more vibrant.
“You can still race at 65 years old. Karting is for all ages, not only for younger drivers,” said Mr Lee. “The thing about motorsports is: I think a lot of people think it’s inaccessible but actually it’s quite accessible, and karting is the cheapest form of motorsports.”
Mr Lee said that the company is in the process of working with MSS to prepare its tracks for international races and hopes to soon start a race series so that the local scene attracts more international drivers.
“The challenge is that we don’t really have a very strong series racing in Singapore right now. If we do have then we can actually attract overseas drivers,” said Mr Lee. “We want to attract foreign drivers to come over so that our own drivers don’t have to travel and can benefit from it.”
Mr Ravishankar said he hopes that the Singapore GP buzz will generate more interest in the local motorsport scene, and encourage people to try out the sport or even go professional.
“I hope that the Singapore GP will make people realise that motorsports exist. It will drive them down to the local kart tracks and get them interested in the sport. Then they would find people they trust to help them – coaches, teams – and eventually we’ll just build on from there,” said Mr Ravishankar.
“And who knows, one day we might have an F1 driver in Singapore.”