Twenty years in karting. One job that has not changed: keeping your karts on track.
If you run a rental kart track, you already know the supplier problem. Manufacturers price you like you have nowhere else to go. Generic parts shops do not understand what a rental fleet actually takes week after week. Shipping is slow when you need it Friday. Advice is thin when you need a straight answer. You end up running half a dozen accounts with vendors who do not really care which kart it is going on.
Twenty years ago I started Fastline with one idea: you deserve a proper trade partner who knows your karts, knows the work, and ships fast enough to matter on a Saturday morning. That has not changed. The business has.
By 2007 the business had moved to the UK, setting up in Esher in Surrey. Then through Surrey to Normandy in 2010, then Camberley in 2013, and last year the move to a new warehouse in Grantham, Lincolnshire. By 2011 the business was the first one-stop rental kart parts shop on the planet. Over the years that followed, you and operators like you turned it into a customer base of more than two thousand tracks in over one hundred and thirty countries. Many of you have been with the business the full twenty years. A lot of you are friends now, not just customers.
That last bit matters more than anything sold here. If you have ordered before, you already know the team by name. You ring, you get Jon or Katrine or Mark or me. Not a call centre. Not a ticket queue. Whoever picks up your call has the answer for you, or knows exactly who on the team does.
Outside the day job I have done a few other things along the way. I was on the Australian National Snow Ski Team in my younger years. I co-authored a book called The First XI, a study of Australia's most successful business people and the patterns behind their success, which became a bestseller. And for the last four years I have been knee-deep in practical AI inside this business, building, testing, and rolling out the kind of tools most operators are still only reading about.
That last bit is why you are now ordering from Rental Kart Parts, not Fastline.
Fastline grew up before modern systems. The IT, the accounting, the webstore, the warehouse, all bolted on year by year and not properly talking to each other. To get the business ready for the next decade and the way you are going to want to be served, the whole thing has been restructured from the ground up. New entity. New warehouse, purpose-set-up for a barcode-driven operation. Modern stack with AI doing the boring admin work in the background, so the team can spend their time on you. A tighter product range built around what you actually order, not everything possible to stock. Aftermarket Sodi, aftermarket Rimo, aftermarket Honda engine parts in the lines you actually move.
Same team. Jon, Katrine, Mark, and me. Same depth of knowledge. Same global reach. Same straight-talking service. We have rebuilt the engine room so you get served faster, and so the human side of how you are looked after gets more attention, not less.
Simo Heap
Founder and CEO, Rental Kart Parts
How we operate
- Orders placed before 2pm dispatched same day (where stock is confirmed)
- Barcode-scanned dispatch for picking accuracy
- Live stock levels on every product page
- DPD, Royal Mail, DHL, InPost and UPS delivery options
- Trade accounts available for regular operators — apply here
The team
Simo Heap
Founder and CEO
Simo started Fastline in Australia in 2006 and moved it to the UK a year later. He has spent the last twenty years building a global supply business for rental kart tracks from the ground up, and the last four years leading the AI and systems work that has now become Rental Kart Parts. His line on it: use AI to take the admin off the team so they can spend more time on the human side of the business.
He is the public face of the business. Strategy, brand, customer relationships, the big calls. If you have been on a video, in a newsletter, or at a Karting Spectacular, you have met him.
Australian originally. Lives in Grantham. Co-authored The First XI, a bestselling Australian business book on the patterns behind the country's most successful operators. Former member of the Australian National Snow Ski Team in his younger years.
Straight-talking, allergic to corporate waffle, and the person most likely to call you back personally if something has gone sideways on your account.
Jon Symes
Co-Founder, Rental Kart Parts
Jon spent 18 years at a leading UK kart track, climbing from marshal to mechanic to manager. He knows the industry and the karts inside and out. There is not much that happens on a rental fleet that Jon has not personally seen, fixed, or sorted.
Simo brought Jon into Fastline for that exact depth of industry knowledge, and for the practical work he had done implementing modern customer platforms like GoHighLevel. When the decision was made to restructure the business as Rental Kart Parts, Jon stepped up as co-founder.
He runs strategy and sales alongside the technical and AI delivery. He owns the day-to-day numbers and is usually the one on the other end of the call when something needs to happen yesterday.
If you order from us regularly, the chances are it is Jon's WhatsApp you are messaging at 4pm on a Friday.
Katrine Lofstrand
Sales and Business Development
Katrine looks after our European and Latin American customers. Swedish, fluent in English and Spanish, which means a sizeable chunk of the global market gets to deal with someone in their own language. Track owners across Scandinavia, Spain, Portugal, and Latin America rate her highly and rightly so.
Her career started in telecoms at Ericsson, then moved through ERP software sales. After that she spent many years at the coalface of the rental karting industry itself, working for a Swedish company that owned three kart tracks. So when Katrine talks to a track owner about staffing a Saturday rush or turning around a faulty fleet kart before opening time, it is from direct experience, not from a brochure.
She has now been with this business for nine years. She has seen the full arc of how the industry has changed and built the kind of customer relationships that come from years of actually showing up.
If you want a straight answer on what is in stock, when it is shipping, and what other tracks in your region are doing, Katrine is the call.
Mark Jordan
Warehouse, Dispatch, Supplier Management, Stock Control and Logistics
Mark came up through the military, where logistics had a sharper edge than most. He spent years moving supplies into some of the most uninhabitable and hard-to-reach parts of the world, getting gear to teams on the ground whose lives depended on it arriving right. He learned to live by what supply soldiers call the 5 Rights: the right item, in the right quantity, in the right condition, to the right person, at the right time. Anything short of all five is a fail.
Your stakes are not his old stakes. But the discipline travels. When your karts need to be on track Saturday morning and your sprockets, chain, brake pads or balaclavas need to be in the workshop Friday afternoon, Mark's operation does not improvise. The 5 Rights still run it.
Over the last few years he has built and rolled out the AI tooling and automation that has quietly transformed how the business operates. Stock movements, pick paths, dispatch workflows, customer-facing logistics communications. Practical, hands-on AI work, designed to take the repetitive admin off the team so the people side of the job gets more attention, not less.
Today Mark runs warehouse, dispatch, supplier management, stock control and logistics across the business, on top of the AI systems he has built to keep it all flowing. If you ever wonder why your parcel arrived faster than you expected, that is Mark and the operation behind him.
Customer Testimonials
“Simon and his team are top notch. Quality products that work for our application, and fast shipping.”
Rick Gaan, Lemans Karting, USA
“Big shout out to Simo and Jon who make my life super easy and stress free. With a few texts all my kit will arrive within 2 days. Highly effective service with quality products.”
Will Smith, Teamworks Karting Northampton, England
“Always good service and competitive pricing. Simo, Jon and the rest of the crew have a wealth of karting knowledge, which they are happy to share FOC.”
Andy Foulkes, Wight Karting, England
“Simo and his team have always put our success first. Their solutions for my business are solely based on what will benefit me. They try to solve my problems. Great people with great intentions. Good luck trying to keep it just business. They will become your friends.”
Jordan Munsters, High Calibre Karting and Entertainment, USA
“Simo and the team always go the extra mile to solve your problems, drawing from their huge experience. They are always there to listen and are interested in exactly what it is you do. You get the idea that they are not only just a business, but also there for the greater good of the karting industry too.”
Chris Wagstaff, Wacky Wheelers, England
“It’s a very good company, good products and good team. Thanks.”
Aritz, Big Karting Vitoria, Spain
“Great help when needed and very friendly. Never had an issue and quick to send packages.”
Jesper Sørensen, Roskilde Racing Centre, Denmark
“Super fast efficient parts supplier. Top service, top company.”
Scott Smith, Teamsport Karting Clydebank, Scotland
“Friendly, extremely knowledgeable and happy to go the extra distance to get what you need. They never fail to deliver.”
Peter Doherty, Inverness Raceway, Scotland
“Been doing business for a few years now. Never been disappointed. Issues are resolved very fast and in a gentleman manner. Great people to do business with.”
Rodney Magness, Seven Racing, Malaysia
“Quick response. Great communication on part availability.”
Mark Fluhler, Hampton Downs, New Zealand
Get in touch
Phone: 01276 297 38
Email: sales@rentalkartparts.com
Address: Glebe Farm, Oasby, Grantham, NG32 3AQ
Hours: Monday to Friday, 9am – 5pm