Go Karting in Neiwan, Hsinchu County Taiwan
Go Karting in Taiwan is a hearkening back to the era of personal responsibility. There’s no helmets, the brakes don’t quite work, no legal liability papers to sign, not a safety track status light in sight and you fly around a track holding on for dear life.
Located in central Taiwan and tucked away in the mountains, I recently got to experience my first go kart outing at Neiwan in Hsinchu County.
The Go Karts
I had no way of telling but the go karts we were on appeared to be 50cc. You pretty much flew around the track with your accelerator pedal floored and hoped for the best.
The brakes on the karts were more of a novelty then a stopping device. I only found myself relying on the brakes when I came up behind some of the girls we were with and they became unpredictable trying to stop me overtaking.
It seems bad female driving on the road readily transfers over to go karts. You’re screaming around trailing someone and they’re concentrating more on stopping you from passing then watching where they’re going.
All of a sudden they underestimate a turn and you reach for the brakes realizing the brakes on Taiwan go karts are more of a ‘we’ll slowly come to a casual stop’ then ‘OMG I NEED TO STOP RIGHT NOW!’ experience.
Other then that, the karts were fine. The tyres kept their grip on the road and there wasn’t any problems with the engines. I still have issues driving with a fuel tank between my legs but that seems to be the norm with go karts these days.
The Track
This particular track was pretty small but was designed well enough to enjoy racing your mates over.
The bitumen was smooth and you had tyre barriers on all of the turns in case you lost control (did I mention there were no helmets?).
The Cost
This is where go karting in Taiwan really shines. Back home I’d be looking at a minimum of $40-$50 AUD for maybe 10 minutes of track time. Over here we paid just $150 NTD (about $5 AUD) and got to do 20 laps of the course.
This equated to roughly 15 mins of racing for me and about 20-25 mins for the girls. Had the track have been bigger and the karts a bit faster I could have easily spent the better part of an hour on the track.
I’ve seen some bigger tracks and faster looking go karts around so no doubt I’ll be visiting another track sometime in the future.
Driving back home from I thought I saw some 150cc signs on some of the other tracks… 150cc go karts and Taiwan’s non existent safety standards should be a blast.
Leave a Reply...