NASCAR drivers flock to kart track, racer's Disneyland

Jeff Gluck | USA TODAY Sports

MOORESVILLE, N.C. -- NASCAR drivers often say racing is more than a job for them — it's life.

So it makes sense, then, that a new karting facility 30 miles north of Charlotte is drawing drivers who want nothing more than to race for fun during their time off from racing.

GoPro Motorplex, a 0.7-mile go-kart track that opened in October, has become a sort of racer's Disneyland. But these aren't the kind of karts your frat buddy would race after playing mini golf or hitting the batting cages. These are high-performance vehicles that attract top drivers, which means you might see NASCAR drivers such as Denny Hamlin, Kasey Kahne and Scott Speed racing on a given night.

"It's the best karting track I've been to, and I've raced karts in Europe, Asia and all over the U.S.," American Le Mans Series driver Colin Braun said. "I try to explain it to my friends, and I tell them it's like a small (Formula One) track. The grass, the curbs, the lights. ... I'm glad they built it near me."

The track is primarily owned and operated by Justin Marks, 32, who will make his NASCAR Sprint Cup debut this weekend at Sonoma Raceway, the 12-turn, 1.99-mile road course in California.

He'll substitute for Cup regular Dave Blaney in Tommy Baldwin Racing's No. 7 Chevrolet. His only experience in the new Gen 6 car is a road-course test at Virginia International Raceway last month.

As Marks walked USA TODAY Sports around the facility, he rattled off the list of NASCAR drivers who had purchased garages at the two-building complex.

There's Justin Allgaier's garage. Kyle Larson's is over there. Jamie McMurray has one. IndyCar driver Will Power does, too.

Hamlin has two garages — he knocked out a wall between them to create more space and then had his personal logo painted on the wall.

Hamlin had never done much karting until he started coming to the Mooresville track, but Marks said he had become a familiar face.

"They really did an awesome job putting it together, and it's world-class," Hamlin said. "I spend a lot of time there in between race weekends to stay sharp and hone my skills."

Those skills include hand-eye coordination, reflexes and muscle memory — all important for a driver, no matter what form of racing.

"Anytime you are racing and competing, you're going to learn something — and there's no pressure in a kart against friends," Hamlin said. "(It's) just a bunch of guys that love racing and working on karts."

Of course, karting has its dangers like any other form of racing, but Hamlin has his team's blessing.

"It really isn't an issue for us. A lot of our guys have always enjoyed karting on their own time," said J.D. Gibbs, president of Joe Gibbs Racing. "They enjoy the competition. You always have concern over them getting hurt no matter what they are doing."

Filling a need

Marks and Cup driver Michael McDowell, a minority owner of the facility, long had noticed the dearth of high-quality karting tracks in the USA, at least compared with Europe. So they gambled, hoping the facility would be embraced — somewhat of a more calculated Field of Dreams approach on 30 acres in the heart of racing country.

The track itself is based on a famous kart track in Parma, Italy, and was built with world championship specifications in mind.

In addition to the garages, the track has state-of-the-art scoring, lights and the largest on-site parts inventory of any track in North America, Marks said. There's a weekly series featuring the top drivers.

The motorplex even worked with Hoosier to come up with a custom-made tire built specifically for its facility; all of the karts run it.

"Really, the goal was to try and build the nicest karting facility in the U.S.," McDowell said. "We thought, 'If we built something cool, they're going to show up.'

"But there were a couple times in the planning stages where we thought, 'I sure hope they're going to show up.'"

Most karting facilities only allow drivers to rent karts — and the vehicles aren't necessarily of the highest quality. But GoPro Motorplex gives racers the ability to store their karts — many of them custom — in garages, which range from $2,500 to $5,500 a year. The track, which opened Oct. 8, sold out all 54 garages by Christmas.

That's intriguing to pro racers, because they can maintain their karts and drive them without having to haul them back and forth from home. That's especially beneficial in this area, about 20 minutes from Lake Norman, where many NASCAR drivers have homes.

Roughly half of the garages were bought by people from the racing industry, Marks said. Some have turned their garages into man caves with couches, refrigerators and TVs.

"We're addicts — that's part of it," McDowell said."It's a very pure form of motor sports, which means you can go do it without the pressure that comes on a normal race weekend. We love racing in the Cup series, but that means there are obligations and high expectations. Sometimes when you get to (the) big level, it can kind of rob the fun out of it. This is fun."

Braun said karting was racing without the politics and commitments, and Marks compared it to an NFL player being able to go back and play a high school football game.

"The Cup series is a job for a lot of these guys, and they enjoy racing high-performance stuff without the pressure of appearances, sponsor demands and a boss," Marks said. "When you remove all those devices, they're just racing because they're passionate about it."

Finding a niche

It's not just pro drivers who like to race in their spare time. Other industry types such as crew chiefs (Mark Martin's crew chief, Rodney Childers, was an early devotee) and spotters have been regulars at the track.

Marks said the track had given his name equity around town — just in a different way than he anticipated when he moved to North Carolina six years ago.

After seasons in ARCA and the Camping World Truck Series, Marks hoped to keep advancing through the stock car ranks. But his career stalled.

"I realized it wasn't going to be helicopters, jets and millions of dollars," he said. "The guys coming up were a lot younger than I was and had already signed their deals before they even got here."

After driving in various sports car series, Marks said he was "bucket list racing" — and he gets to scratch off a Cup start at the track closest to his hometown of Los Altos, Calif.

Marks' modest goals include getting a finish similar to what Blaney notches every week (Blaney's average finish is 28th) and to maintain the team's position in owner points. But he plans to have fun, much like the NASCAR regulars do at his track.

"I'm going to get to enjoy it," he said, "without the pressure of trying to make a career out of it."

Follow Gluck on Twitter @jeff_gluck