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They’re taking a victory lap.
An indoor go-kart track earned a Guinness record as the largest course of its kind – as its spaghetti-like twists gave one NASCAR star a run for his money on Tuesday.
RPM Raceway in Farmingdale officially celebrated its entry into the Guinness Book of World Records with 2023 Daytona 500 winner Ricky Stenhouse Jr. taking a solo lap on the massive 3,515.7 square-foot track.
“I won a lot of races, done a lot of things, but this is a first for me,” Stenhouse told The Post.
He said he sized up the track split between a labyrinth-like, intertwining upper and lower level on a walkthrough, but quickly realized there were “a lot of corners” to weave in and out of at about 40 miles per hour.
“[The toughest part is] trying to figure out which corner you’re in and where you’re at, because when I walked it earlier, I thought I was back at the start — and I was not.”
The so-called “megatrack” Stenhouse took on is actually a combination of RPM’s three raceways, which are all individually less than 1,500 feet.
A multimillion-dollar revamp from November to April installed an elevated new level and configured the course to be interchangeable in six ways — including the world record racer’s delight format.
That course opened to the public on Mondays for $30.
“One of my favorites is the banked corners up top,” Stenhouse said after notching a singular lap time of 1:39.8 — a smidge under his goal of 1:40.
“At a couple of places, you come off the ground, which is really neat, and makes you feel like you’re going pretty fast. So it was a lot of fun.”
Guinness official adjudicator Andy Glass said the record is a new category — with the bare minimum to achieve the award set at 900 meters, or 2952.76 feet.
“I’ve definitely certified over 100 records, anything from the fastest juggler to the most cookies baked in a marathon, to the tallest piñata,” Glass said.
“This is definitely one of the more thrilling ones, definitely one of the speediest ones.”
Even Glass himself had to try the track, which had a soft opening on Long Island for a few weeks.
The adjudicator participated in a second heat with some staff — some of whom beat the NASCAR driver’s initial lap time by about a second or so.
Full throttle
The go-kart controls are manageable after a few seconds, with RPM’s newly purchased fleet of carts handling and drifting well as wind-swept drivers take its many corners at death-defying speeds.
It could be difficult to know what part of the track is upcoming, but that just adds to the thrill.
Racers must be on their game the entire ride, ready to cut, drift, and fly down straightaway sections and downward ramps that evoke a roller coaster dipping.
Even dramatically spinning out or getting bumped by another car — as was the case when a Post reporter raced on the track Tuesday — appear to be more entertaining than dangerous.
For more experienced drivers like Stenhouse, it’s the perfect ride down memory lane.
“I grew up go-kart racing,” he said.
“And just about everybody in our NASCAR Cup Series grew up go-kart racing. So it’s cool to come back to your roots.”
English (US)