From Rally Crashes to Karting

By June Ramli

Perth, April 1: Glenn Macneall jokes that he’s spent much of his life crashing cars for a living. After 25 years co-driving and rallying around the world, he reached a crossroads.
As he tells it, someone finally told him it was time to “grow up” and get a real job. Instead of walking away from motorsport, he decided to turn that experience into something more accessible and fun for everyday people.
PowerPlay, the go-karting brand he founded, grew directly out of that racing life.
Macneall says he asked himself a simple question: what did he actually know anything about?
The answer was driving, competition and making speed feel safe.

So he created PowerPlay to share that passion with as many people as possible, transforming the traditional industrial, “dark and dingy” image of go-kart venues into something brighter, safer and more welcoming.
From those racing roots came a business model built on safety and engineering discipline. Macneall points out that he’s “crashed enough cars in my lifetime with rallying to know how important safety is”, so from day one PowerPlay invested heavily in barrier systems imported from Europe and a maintenance regime that treats rental go-karts like professional race machines.
At one of his venues, he notes, many karts have clocked over 100,000 kilometres, yet still surprise their manufacturer with how good they look thanks to ongoing upkeep.

Building a Business During COVID

PowerPlay launched in 2020, right in the middle of the pandemic.
Macneall started with a track in Joondalup, in Perth’s northern suburbs, largely funded by his own savings, some support from two friends, and a final top-up loan from his parents.
He recalls putting in “all the money that I had as basically spare and put it all in” to get the business off the ground, with the initial capital bill reaching about three quarters of a million dollars.
Despite the timing, Western Australia’s relatively short and limited lockdowns meant PowerPlay was able to open and trade.

In fact, the travel restrictions helped: people couldn’t go overseas, but they still wanted something fun to do locally.
Go-karting, Macneall argues, is comparatively affordable: not cheap, given the heavy capital outlay, but still “cheap fun” in the wider context of motorsport and travel.
The business broke even faster than he expected and grew quickly enough that the second venue opened in November 2022, without any new external investment.
From there, the growth story accelerated.
Macneall brought in a small amount of outside capital after proving the concept with two venues, partnering with an experienced business friend to help plan a national roll-out.

Sydney in Two Months

At the time of speaking, PowerPlay is on the verge of crossing into Australia’s largest city.
After establishing multiple tracks in Perth and three in Melbourne, the company is about to build its first Sydney venue in Northmead, near Parramatta.
Work on the new site is scheduled to start within a week, with an ambitious timeline to open to the public in roughly two months.
This Sydney outlet will be fitted into an existing building, which should help speed up the build process.
The broader strategy is clear: methodically roll out high-quality, tightly maintained venues around the country, keeping the experience accessible.
Macneall’s philosophy is to “make a little bit of money out of a lot of people” rather than maximising profit from a few.
That approach, he says, has helped make PowerPlay one of the more affordable and popular go-kart options in Australia.

Tips for First-Time Drivers

While the business story is impressive, Macneall is at his most animated when sharing tips for nervous or novice drivers.
One of the biggest mistakes almost everyone makes, he says, is where they look.
New drivers tend to stare just in front of the kart, at their feet or the immediate track surface.
He urges them instead to look much further ahead, just like on the road.
Doing so smooths out inputs, reduces sudden reactions and helps drivers prepare earlier for corners and traffic.
Braking, not the accelerator, is the secret to lapping quickly.
Macneall insists that “braking is absolutely the key to going fast”.
Brake hard in the right spot, he explains, get the kart pointed toward the corner, and only then go back on the power.
Drivers who brake just a metre or two earlier can return to the throttle much sooner and carry more speed, whereas late brakers end up slow off the corner, losing large chunks of time.
He also emphasises patience in the transition phase between braking and accelerating — that split second where the kart rotates towards the apex and the driver waits to unwind the steering.
Visualising the front of the kart as narrow and pointed helps novices understand where they’re actually placing the vehicle on track.

Facing Fear on Track

For many visitors, go-karting is a bucket-list activity tinged with fear. Macneall and his team have structured the entire PowerPlay experience around helping those people. Staff are trained not just to operate the track, but to educate. Nervous drivers are encouraged to come on quieter weekdays so they can get more one-on-one support out on track.
He recalls a particularly striking example from Joondalup: a boy at a 10th birthday party who was so afraid he stopped at the top of the ramp and refused to go down.
The team gently coaxed him off the kart that day and invited him back midweek when the venue was empty.
Over time, with patient coaching and repetition, that same boy not only conquered his fear but became quick enough to enter adult-only events, eventually finishing second in one of them.

PowerPlay also works closely with people on the NDIS, who often start out intimidated but gradually gain confidence through weekly visits.
Macneall says that once the helmets are on and the laps start adding up, “you can’t tell who the carer is and who the other person is” out on track — they’re simply drivers, competing and having fun.
Underpinning it all is his belief that cars themselves aren’t dangerous; the danger comes when people get behind the wheel without proper training.
In his view, the country focuses too much on scaring drivers rather than teaching them.
By starting kids as young as 10 and giving adults a structured, repeatable learning environment, he hopes PowerPlay can produce not just faster lap times, but better, safer drivers on the road.