Vroom Vroom

Inverness’s upcoming festival is all about speed and races toward its sixth year of celebrating motorsports.

› By Cealia Athanason

There’s a rip-roaring good time waiting for you at the Inverness Grand Prix and Motorsports Festival.

“There’s nothing like it around,” says Harry Lewis, race organizer.

Several years ago, the Affordable Karting Club met with Inverness City Manager Frank DiGiovanni to talk about developing a street race. It was originally the idea of a local ice cream shop owner, Josh Richardson of The Ice Cream DR. When the AKC would come hang out over ice cream after racing, he brought up how cool it would be to have a street race.

“It happened four months after it was mentioned,” says Lewis.

And the race has continued each year since. The last two years, rain interfered a bit, but they still managed to put on a good show. Besides rain, racers also have to take into account that this is a street race. The streets of downtown Inverness aren’t modified at all, and the karts must race over various street surfaces, including crosswalks and drainage dips—not to mention, navigating 90-degree turns.

The streets of downtown Inverness aren’t modified at all, and the karts must race over various street surfaces, including crosswalks and drainage dips—not to mention, navigating 90-degree turns.

“The karts are so low to the ground. You can’t fit a finger below them,” Lewis says.

For experienced racers, this adds an element of complexity to the race that keeps them on their toes. But for the inexperienced? Well, Lewis laughs and says prepared tracks are easier to race on, so that’s usually what they would prefer.

These karts are fast, and he remembers one police officer clocking a racer going 72 mph.

“I think we’ve had people faster than that,” Lewis says. “It’s all a matter of where you gear it on the track.”

That’s why hay and plastic barriers are set up in direct-impact areas. There’s also a giant rule book put together by the World Karting Association that karting clubs and the festival follow.

Besides the kart races on Saturday, this motorsports festival kicks off on Friday night with a local car cruise-in, vendors and a restaurant and pub crawl at 5pm. Then, at 7pm, Tampa’s Stormbringer Band takes the stage. Saturday morning, while the kart racers practice, another car show starts at 10am. The races get going at noon.

It’s a packed two days, with an estimated crowd of 5,000 attending each year. Take the whole family—it’s the only one of its kind in the southeastern United States.