Robert Lindsay

When your business is with theme parks and you are dealing with Six Flags you cannot be doing badly.

And that is exactly what Cirkitz Inc Ltd and Lintec International of Staverton is doing.

Forget Alton Towers, or even the giant Disney Corporation. Six Flags is the world's largest theme park company operating 39 parks, most across America but also in Belgium, France, Germany, Netherlands and Spain.

And staff from Cirkitz Inc Ltd have just returned from the Six Flags park near Brussels, Belgium, where the team saw its fleet of karts, the track it has built and operating staff it has trained up, all open for business.

The Gloucestershire bus-iness grew out of Lintec International, which began developing and then manufacturing its specialist electric karts in 1994.

The karts are now much in demand around the world and together the two businesses employ 22 staff.

Sarah Lindsay commercial director and sister of the company founder Rob Lindsay, said: "We started out as Lintec, the company which manufactures karts and supplies them to family entertainment centres. We realised there was a large market there for the running of the centres themselves, and started Cirkitz Inc with Tony (Diett)." Cirkitz Inc opened up a whole new business opportunity.

"We have run various circuits before such as the circuit at Beaulieu Motor Museum, Hampshire, which we have run three times a year, and at the Millennium Dome. But the Brussels circuit is the first one we have managed outside the UK. "Mr Lindsay, technical director of the business, said: "The Belgium park is the fourth single largest park in the world It gets in the region of 1.2 million visitors a year Alton Towers gets under one million visitors."

The success of both companies would not have been possible with-out Mr Lindsay's development of the kart itself which is assembled at Lintec's Staverton head-quarters.

Years of experience racing karts and saloon cars, plus an engineering background, helped him develop a high specification electric kart capable of 100 mph which can be used safely in fair grounds because of a number of special features.

Theme park ride operators can limit its top speed, even slow or stop a kart completely with a remote control, a feature which can prove a life-saver in the case of an accident on the circuit.

And while half of the karts are in use on the circuit, the other half can be parked in the pit lane charging up their batteries.

Another attraction is that the electric engines mean there are zero fuel emissions and noise levels at 45 decibels of sound; equivalent of two people talking a metre apart.

Each vehicle costs £5,500, but because of this ground breaking safety measure, and because Cirkitz Inc will design and build the track and supply highly trained staff to run the ride, theme parks like Six Flags are introducing karts to their parks for the first time.

Tony Diett, chief executive officer said the company was paid a fee to build and set up the track, supply the karts and the staff to run them. It then operated the ride, making its profit from the takings.

"The Belgium deal is worth 40,000 euros. It will operate 160 days of the year. The way we work it out is that people pay between six and eight euros a time for a ride and we expect to get a minimum of 10% of the 1.3 million visitors a year that's 130,000 people, although that is a very conservative estimate. Normally we would expect to get between 22% and 27%." Mr Diett explained the company had used Belgium contractors to build the track and staff it.

And establishing a branch of the business abroad, gaining an understanding of the culture and business law had been a challenge.

Sarah Lindsay said: "Negotiations are already significantly underway to open further kart tracks at Six Flags, Madrid, Jazz-land in New Orleans (now owned by Six Flags), Ocean Park in Hong Kong and the Dubailand Venture, U.A.E.

But this formula is one we plan to continue as word is spreading fast about the all-round product our operation offers."

Robert Lindsay

Written in 2003