MUSCLE MOTORS SPEEDWAY

Great workers they are all just so nice I suggest going here for ages 5 or above I had a lot of fun the track is very twisty and had lots of turns if you like roller coasters this is the place for you!

Wow. This is a greasy, motorhead’s go-​kart track (and I mean that in a good way), maybe the best I’ve seen in the Northeast, rivaled only by a couple of megatracks I’ve seen in California. The owner runs this as a side business on top of a regular landscaping business, and is a racer, and this is more of a hobbyist’s dream than your typical go-​kart track. Everything about it smells of dragster fuel and testosterone a bit more than the typical go-​kart place. There are some caveats about this as a family destination, and it’s not the same as a serious amateur’s track where you can bring your own car, but it’s in a niche of its own between the ‘funplex’ go-​kart track and a competitive racing track.
The setting is pretty fantastic — though just off I-​88 and right on SR 145, it’s in an area of rolling hills with nice mountain views and bucolic meadows, absolutely lovely in summer. The Gobbler’s Knob minigolf– complex is on the same driveway, but is run as a separate business with separate hours.
Tracks: there’s a basic track with an extension «full track», the latter of which can only be raced occasionally (currently Tuesday nights after 6). The tracks are Formula one-​style «road» courses with mini-​signs and lines in the middle, very nicely done. The basic track starts out with a climb over a bridge, then does a sharp turn into the underpass, a fine place to wipe out (gently) — you can even drift a bit if you try hard. There’s an ess-​curve followed by a gentle bank-​loop climb back up to the bridge. For the basic track, for $ 7, you get about 5 – 8 minutes of racing. They seem to make sure there’s enough cars to actually race, and it’s a fair test of skill. There are double-​karts, which for an extra $ 1 you can add a child passenger; kids 54″ and taller can drive on their own. The «full» track includes a longer extension of a half oval and runs a full 800 feet; the charge for a full track race is $ 10. The track’s safety barrier is welded metal, with tires and steel posts for the outer ring, which seem to be sufficient.
Cars: standard go-​karts with regulators and kill switches, with metal safety bumpers, which run two-​wide on the course. The fiberglass outer bodies are all different, with different colors and body styles and have local «sponsors» on them with individual numbers, so it looks cool and littler kids will dig them. Handling was decent, tires were a bit fleshy, and horsepower and speed are typical low-​end go-​kart level, but the engines seemed in tune and the brakes and gas were responsive.
Here are the three big caveats:
— «cash only token system». This is a little weird, and the signage is really confusing at the place, so I will try to summarize for you in a way less confusing. In an effort to avoid handling cash, the proprietors only take tokens — which you have to purchase from machines that require «exact change», with cash. This means a very awkward counting out system, because if you put in $ 1, you get a $ 1 token, but if you put in any other denomination ($ 5, $ 10, $ 20) you get out $ 5 tokens. This means you have to bring a lot of $ 1s to get $ 1 tokens to round up to the $ 7 or $ 8 you will pay for your ride for a single or double, because you can’t get «change» for $ 5 tokens (you can pay two $ 5 tokens for a $ 7 race if you want to waste $ 3, though.) Just remember: a $ 5 bill and two $ 1 bills will get you a 5-​token piece and two 1-​token piece, like exchanging money in a foreign country, but you need «exact tokens» to get your ride. Which brings me to Caveat # 2:
— the proprietors have the proverbial grease under their fingernails. Translation: this means their people skills need a little fine-​tuning. They are nice enough about some things but seem annoyed at explaining the hard-​to-​understand token system and impatient with some bad drivers who were tooting along or blocking faster drivers. At the same time it seemed like they bent over backwards to get a quality race in. This is both a bug and a feature of the place, and I think if you go there knowing in advance they may be a bit gruff, and are prepared about the token system, you won’t mind so much. Which leads me to Caveat #3:
— confusion over hours. The website, two different notices (side by side!) in the mini-​golf place, and signs on the speedway itself all had different hours listed! It turned out today the correct hours were the ones listed on the sign on the motorway, but we arrived three hours early and if I hadn’t found a way to kill a lot of time with the kids it might’ve been a pretty awful long trip for nothing. I believe this probably gets back to the «not the main business, but a passionate part-​time sideline» nature of this place, so my only advice is to try to call and confirm hours before you come.
But this is really worth a trip to get here — a serious course, individually-​designed and built, with well-​maintained cars. It’s a couple of bucks more than the go-​kart places we go locally but you get what you pay for and then some.