Mario Kart in real life: Perth drivers, this one's worth the flight

If you've ever sat in Perth's Leach Highway crawl and fantasised about dropping an oil slick on the ute riding your bumper, BattleKart is the experience you didn't know you needed.

Tucked inside the Entertainment Quarter at Moore Park in Sydney, BattleKart is a high-tech karting venue that projects an entire game — circuits, power-ups, hazards — directly onto the floor using more than 80 ceiling-mounted projectors. The electric karts interact with all of it in real time. Think Mario Kart, but you're actually in the seat.

The catch: it's closing soon, with the Moore Park precinct facing a major redevelopment. If you've got a Sydney trip on the cards, or you're weighing up a school holiday interstate run, this is worth building an itinerary around.

What actually happens on the track

Forget tyre walls and painted lines. BattleKart projects the entire circuit onto the floor, and the karts read it all. Pick up a bonus square and a rocket appears on your dashboard. Drop an oil slick and the karts behind you physically slow down. It sounds like a gimmick until you're mid-race — then it becomes genuinely competitive.

There are five game modes: BattleRace (Mario Kart-style with power-ups and weapons), BattleSnake (the classic Snake game, but in a kart), BattleFoot (kart soccer), BattleColour (team-based arena painting), and BattleVirus (co-op mode where you work together to contain a spreading virus).

Because the karts have an anti-collision system that automatically slows them when another kart gets too close, helmets aren't required. You just jump in. That makes it far more accessible for younger kids — there's no minimum age, just a height requirement of 145cm.

Worth knowing before you book

BattleKart is currently running 25 per cent off all sessions. Use the code **GETHYPER** when booking online — the offer is valid until Sunday 19 July, the end of the school holidays.

The venue is also a five-minute walk from Hyper Karting, which runs Australia's longest indoor electric karting track on the rooftop of the Entertainment Quarter carpark. If you're making the trip from Perth, doing both in one visit is easy enough to plan.

Hyper Karting had its own drama earlier this year — the City of Sydney refused to extend its temporary operating approval, threatening more than 150 jobs. After a significant public backlash and thousands of submissions, the venue kept its doors open and is currently running seven days a week.

For WA families, the honest pitch is this: Perth's indoor karting options are solid, but nothing in the state currently replicates the BattleKart format. If you're already flying east for the school holidays, it's a straightforward addition to the itinerary — and the discounted sessions make the cost easier to justify on top of already-expensive interstate travel.

BattleKart won't be around forever. If it lands on your radar, don't leave the booking too long.