Last week, our weekend plans were thrown for a bit of a loop when we found out we needed to drive down state and look after our nephews last minute. My wife's brother was going to go down and do it, but he had something unexpected come up, so we offered to fill in.
Normally we would have all the kids on an occasion like this, but their sister was attending the daddy daughter dance that night with their dad. Meanwhile, their mom was in charge of the dance, so she had to be on hand to make sure it all went off without a hitch. That left us with the two boys for the night.
As soon as we found out we were going to have them, 
I had looked into one of those indoor trampoline parks, but my brother in law said their sister actually enjoys those more than the boys do. He said if it is nice out we could always just take them to the park to play basketball. That's one of the things they love to do. Unfortunately, it wasn't that nice out.
I looked into taking them to the bowling alley as I mentioned to 
Eventually, I happened upon Extreme Kart Racing which was just up the expressway one exit. Built in a strip mall in a building that use to be a KMart store (I think), Extreme Indoor Kart Racing is unlike anything I have ever seen before.
So we picked up the boys around 4:00 PM on Friday and fought our way through traffic up to Clio, Michigan where the kart track was.
I was a big shocked to see that the place was virtually dead when we stepped inside.
To be fair, it did look a bit sketch as we were walking in. The whole strip mall seems virtually abandoned and much of the building looks like it has seen better days.
They have the building separated into two sections. The side above is where the spectators sit. They also have a party area and a small arcade that we didn't have time to check out.
You pay at the counter up front, then wait to be called back for them to go over the safety protocols and rules.
We decided to just let the boys race while we sat and watched.
The other side of the building is the track. It's billed as being a 1/4 mile long, but I am not sure how accurate that is.
We had to sit behind a wall with windows in that spectator area I mentioned above, we weren't even allowed in the racing area.
There were a couple adult guys finishing up a race when we got there. They looked like they were having a blast.
It was hard to get a good photo of the track from behind the glass. It actually goes back into the back area of the store to the left there. We weren't able to even seen the boys for a good portion of the race.
I think one of our biggest complaints about the place was the fact that there wasn't adequate ventilation. I'm guessing there is probably some kind of code or rule for a business like this and while they may have been meeting the minimum standard, the exhaust fumes from the gas powered karts was starting to get to us by the time we left.
We were able to get two races for the boys at $30 a piece, so $60 total for them to race. Which didn't seem too bad at the time, but when you consider the fact that a race only lasts maybe five minutes, it's actually a bit pricey.
So $60 for ten to fifteen minutes of fun. They boys had a blast though and at that point, it didn't really matter how much it cost.
It was actually kind of comical to watch them at first. I don't think they had ever been in a go-kart before and they were putzing around the track like a little old lady on a Sunday drive. My youngest nephew kept having trouble with the sharp turn you see in the photo above and the workers had to run out and set him straight since the karts don't have reverse.
Eventually though, he got it. By the end of the second race they were going quite a bit faster than they had to begin with.
I found myself wishing I had went out there with them and driven a couple of laps.
I tried taking some photos, but ended up getting blurry ones like the one above.
So then I started messing with the shutter speed on my phone to see if I could get the action shots a little better. It was hard to find a balance of the shutter being open long enough to let a good amount of light in, but not being open too long that the karts turned out blurry.
As you can see in the photo above, I was way off on both counts!
I was able to get one or two good ones.
It's pretty cool too because they keep track of your lap times and they put your stats on a display that everyone can see. It actually worked out well that the place was so dead, my nephews were the only ones on the track and instead of having to wait in between races, they were able to run them both back to back.
Depending on how fast the drivers go, a single race usually gives you between 6 to 10 laps around the track.
As you can see, I think they had a pretty good time!
The boys picked Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner, so we took them there, then we headed home where they went to their respective areas to play Fortnite. Good call on the part of
Their dad got home about 9:30 PM and
It wasn't what we had planned for our Friday night, but I'd like to hope the boys will carry moments like this with them for a long time. Time spent with others is definitely time well spent, and I'm definitely happy I got to spend this time with them.
All pictures/screenshots taken by myself or
