One of the two indoor road-course go-karting tracks at F1 Boston in Braintree, Mass., where employees monitor the action.

the providence journal / Steve Szydlowski

BRAINTREE You might be excused for thinking that go-karts are for kiddies. There’s something about their size and the letter “k.”

And you would be entirely wrong, as a visit to F1 Boston south of Boston proves.

There may be junior leagues in go-karting, but they are far more popular among adults, and when you consider they can go as fast as 60 mph and your bottom is a couple of inches off the tarmac, the thrill is very real.

It’s all relative, said Glen Ransden, marking director of F1 Boston. “When you’re driving at 60 miles an hour down I-95, it doesn’t feel that fast. But when you’re driving at 60 miles an hour in the parking lot at Stop & Shop . . .”

Indeed, F1 Boston General Manager Karen Quast, who is a national kart racer with the World Karting Association, said she drove a Formula Ford traditional open-wheel race car at 150 mph down the straight at Lime Rock Park, but felt she was moving in slow motion compared with driving a kart at 60 mph.

F1 Boston has two indoor go-kart tracks, both about a quarter of a mile long, in addition to a restaurant, store, billiard hall, karting school and meeting rooms. The company has 150 full-time and part-time employees and also runs a 1.3 mile outdoor kart track at East Bridgewater, Mass. Its main business is corporate events.

“Ninety percent of our business is corporate,” said Ransden, noting the company sponsors meetings that focus on such areas as team building, developing leaders, motivating staff and strengthening employee relationships.

“We organize corporate events that happen to work around the metaphor of racing,” he said, noting that some 6,500 companies have come through since they opened in 2000. “Karting is the fastest growing motor sport right now.”

Certainly that metaphor dominates the atmosphere at the 106,000-square-foot facility, which was converted from the old Blue Hills Tennis Center near the junction of I-93 and Route 3 to the tune of $8 million and opened in 2000.

Indeed, it is owner Richard J. Valentine’s 25-year career as a race car driver that informs F1 Boston. Valentine, 63, is president and CEO of F1 Boston and the founder of The MBA Group Companies out of Boston that owns F1 among about 20 other companies.

Valentine races with the TRG racing team out of Monterey, Calif., and he and his team recently finished fourth in their class driving a Porsche GT3 at the 46th running of the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona, Fla. In 2003, he and his team won the endurance race.

Indeed, F1 Boston’s spacious lobby is dominated by a Dodge Viper in racing colors mounted on a round dais. Ransden said Valentine has not raced the car, but he did race the Pontiac GTOR that is parked around the corner.

Behind the Viper is a row of high-end CRG go-karts from Germany that F1 markets and distributes in the U.S. They range in size and price, culminating in 9 horsepower rockets that can go 60 mph and cost $12,000.

Ransden said these machines are considered racing karts and are used at its outdoor 1.3 mile track outside East Bridgewater. The karts used to race at the facility’s two indoor quarter-mile tracks are 6 1/2 horsepower RIMOs which are also from Germany. They run as fast as 40 mph.

“But with the twists and turns, it seems a lot faster,” reiterated Ransden.

Another difference is that the RIMOs are armed with large steel buffers that run right round the outside of the car, which prevents the possibility of cars knocking wheels, which can be dangerous at high speed on a tight track. The open wheels of the CRG cars are unprotected.

While anyone can walk into F1 Boston and drive a kart for $28 plus a $10 license fee, they have to go through a safety talk and wear appropriate clothing, including a driving suit, helmet and neck brace which are included.

Adult leagues take place on Mondays and Fridays while kids’ leagues (age 7-17) take place on weekends. At the same time, it is possible to rent track space for practice or with a bunch of friends, depending on availability. The company also runs a summer camp.

Typical races are 15 laps with each lap taking around 20 seconds to complete, depending on the skill of the driver.

Each kart is equipped with a transponder that relays live information to an electronic race board that shows the order of the drivers and their numbers, how many laps they have completed and the time of their fastest lap.

Five staff members monitor each race and are ready to slow down or stop the race if anything untoward occurs. Ransden said there has never been any problem with safety in the history of the tracks.

Ransden said the corporate events typically involved 60 or so employees — the highest number he said was 1,200 — who come to develop teamwork.

“With 60 people and 10 karts, there are six people on a team,” he said. “The question is how to bring everyone together to work on a team.”

He said such events often involve endurance races than may last 1 1/2 hours with the team that completes the most laps winning. In such races, the drivers rotate after so many laps, just as they do at Daytona or Le Mans.

“That means you’re either getting ready to take a turn at the wheel, behind the wheel on the track, just finished your turn on the track, or cheering the others on,” he said, adding that they key is the building of teamwork with everyone involved even though they might not be driving all the time.

Another team-building exercise is tire changing and involves a real race car that is parked on one side of a carpeted hall, a few feet from a low wall. The setup duplicates a pit area on a race track and teams of six are timed as they leap over the wall with one jacking the car up, one taking the tires off, one putting the tires on, one refueling and one cleaning the windshield — just like professional pit crews work.

Ransden said the teams then analyze their performance and adjust the teams with people switching roles or swapping members with other teams.

Apart from the fun and excitement, F1 Boston offers corporations more sober but equally important facilities such as meeting rooms armed with wi-fi and screens as well as in-house catering.

The Ascari CafÉ, for example, is named after Italian ace Alberto Ascari, who was the Formula One World Champion in 1952 and 1953. And a sign outside the cafÉ notes that the Phantom Gourmet on Channel 38 proclaimed F1 Boston the “Greatest Place for a First Date.”

“We talk to the corporations before they come and ask them about their goals,” said Ransden, noting they could include developing camaraderie, working with clients, working within departments or with other departments, client or staff retention. “We get speakers in and develop team-building activities on and off the track. Most groups come back regularly, some three or four times a year.”

Other corporate events include NASCAR stars coming with corporate clients — Jeff Gordon with officers from Dupont, for example – and mingling and racing with them.

Meanwhile, Valentine is currently working with three partners to build New Jersey Motorsports, a 700-acre complex outside Millville, N.J., that will include two full road course race tracks — the 2.25 Thunderbolt Raceway and the 1.9 Lightening Raceway — and a 1.1 mile outdoor go-kart track, plus concessions stands, paddocks and condos.

“We’ve got a Grand Am event for the end of August,” said Quast, adding that the facility had to open in July. “We’ve got lots of money on deposit so we have to be open and operating in July!”

However, the immediate challenge will be this weekend when sports fans will descend on the place to watch the Super Bowl on a 10-foot by 10-foot TV screen, according to Ransden.

But there are 90 monitors in the building, so presumably there will be plenty of places to view the game.

For more information, check out www.f1boston.com and www.njmotorsportspark.com.

pelsworth@projo.com