LADIES and gentlemen, start your engines: Go-karting is coming to Yangon at the Galaxy Racing Club in Thingangyun township, with a grand opening set for October 30.

For the uninitiated, go-karting is the racing of small motorised karts around a track. Internationally it’s a legitimate and highly entertaining leisure activity and also where F1 racers learned to drive fast.

A spokesperson for the club said the facility was originally finished in 2000 but has undergone a renovation since July this year and is now ready for racing.

At first there will be a fleet of 15 cars available at the club, which is also linked with four other clubs in Thailand and Japan, he said.

He said that the main aim of the club is to start a racing tradition in Myanmar, with the hopes that one day the nation will have racing drivers able to represent it in international events.

The cars themselves were imported from Japan, from the Yamaha company.
“I have already imported 15 cars from Yamaha in Japan; 12 are two-stroke and three are four-stroke.

“The four-stroke cars are capable of reaching 20 kilometres per hour [kph], while the two-strokes can hit at least 60kph,” he said.

“Basically the four-stroke cars are for beginners while the two-stroke cars will be reserved for more experienced drivers,” the spokesperson said.

He added that the club’s instructors will be available to teach new drivers how to drive and those beginners will be able to move up to the two-stroke cars after about three hours driving experience.

The spokesperson said he has not yet decided how much a session will cost but promised that it will be less than could be expected in Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia.

“I am still calculating how much to charge per hour but I’m sure it will be less than elsewhere,” he said.

Motorsport, however, is never cheap and the spokesperson said the investment in the club was already substantial.