Interview One-on-One: Fred Ogrim – Victory Lane Karting
Posted by Tom on 03/23/2010
One-on-One: Fred Ogrim – Victory Lane Karting


Victory Lane Karting has grown in leaps and bounds, bringing high-quality indoor karting to the state of North Carolina, in a state that thrives off racing, Victory Lane offers fun and racing excitement combined with corporate and group outings in one location.



Godfrey: Fred, What is your background as far as racing? I raced motorcycles since I was 15 years old.

Godfrey: How did you become interested in indoor karting? Six years ago I was visiting my brother in law in North Carolina and he brought me to a place called Victory Lane Karting.

Godfrey: Did you immediately see the potential of indoor karting for a business? No not at all. It was hard for me to believe that you could make a living on indoor kart racing.

Godfrey: Are you a native of the Charlotte and when did you get involved with Victory Lane? I grew up in Southern California and moved to Charlotte 5 years ago.

Godfrey: The Charlotte area has had good growth but have you been able to pull customers from the suburbs to your facility? We do bring in people from the suburbs. Our family clientele has really increased in the last two years.

Godfrey: What has been the response from the community so far? Very positive, most people have a hard time invisioning indoor kart racing. We all have childhood visions of slow moving karts you ran in your neighborhood. But once people visit us they are sold.

Godfrey: What spurred the thought for this interview was a recent trip through Charlotte where we stopped and raced at your facility. Not only was the racing good, the facility was as clean and well kept as any I have been in. That doesn't just happen, you must work on it daily. We do pride ourselves in constantly up grading and changing our facility. We don’t want people getting bored with their experience.

Godfrey: The indoor kart racing business is broken into two separate areas, the "arrive and drive" general public customer and "corporate" business, what has the reception been like from the corporate groups? Corporate is the heart of my business. I can think of no better corporate event. Anyone can do it. Everyone drives and in here they do it a little out of control.

Godfrey: During my recent visit I noticed a huge amount of construction going on in your location, what's up?Well… We are adding 6000 square feet to our lobby. We want to be able to have 600 or 700 people in here. We’re adding bowling lanes and a bar/ restaurant. We’re very excited to offer an alternate activity.

Godfrey: Quite an large project, especially following on the heels of adding a second track to your facility. We feel that growing is very important. We have a great customer base and don’t want them to ever get tired of us.

Godfrey: What has been the response from the competitive “motor sports” community?We have several race teams that use us to celebrate wins or end there season with a nice party. We even have two teams that use our Lemans format as a training day instead of the gym.

Godfrey: Speaking of racing, I see that you have teamed with the Indoor Kart Racing League to have a $5000.00 race on April 25th, 2010, should be huge. I really believe that indoor racing has a place in competitive sports. We provide the equipment which is basically the same for everyone. This makes it driver talent that sets someone apart from the field. And the cost to the competitor is very low compared to any other form of racing. But in order o bring the racers we need to offer cash prizes and the opportunity to go racing at even bigger levels.

Godfrey: Fred, thanks for your time and insight into the indoor karting business.
Best of luck to you and Victory Lane Karting in the coming year. Thank you for having me and good luck to you and indoorkartreport.com!


To contact Victory Lane go to : www.victorylanekarting.com