The Scoop
THE CARLSONS – STAYING IN THE RACING GAME WITH LEGOS
Posted on: Tuesday March 4, 2025
Cayden, Chris & Cory Carlson pose with their new Brickcars made out of Legos.
When racers hang up their helmet and call it a career, sometimes they’ll find a way to remain relevant in the racing game.
Some become crew chiefs or car owners. Others may chip in working as a track official in some capacity.
For the South Milwaukee-based Carlson racing team, brothers Cory and Chris have found themselves a unique and creative way to remain in the racing game and it involves – are you ready for this? – LEGOS!
The sons of Southeastern Wisconsin racing legend Gregg Carlson, Cory and Chris decided to start up a business during the height of the Covid pandemic. They launched a business making customized sponsor signage, among other things.
When Chris visited the popular Experimental Aviation Association (EAA) mid-summer show in Oshkosh two years ago, Chris’ son Graysen bought a LEGO set. On the way home, Chris placed a phone call to Cory. “Chris said to me “Why aren’t we making these (kits) for race cars?” Cory explained. “Cory replied, “It would take an engineer to figure it out.”
Chris Carlson works on the first of hundreds of Brickcars.
So Chris, a longtime modified and dirt late model racer with multiple track titles under his belt, spent close to two years designing a LEGO dirt late model. And it just so happened that Chris was a design engineer by trade. “We got (a proof) really close to what we thought we had,” Cory said. “But we didn’t want to launch it until we had the pieces in place.”
The Carlson’s phoned a friend in North Carolina – Joe Adams. Adams’ son, Daniel Adams, is running for the World of Outlaw late model rookie-of-the-year crown this year. “We explained to Joe that we had started a new business with these LEGO-based cars,” Cory said. “We had done work with him with some signage in the past, and he agreed to meet with us.”
The brothers crafted a brick late model replica of Daniel’s WoO late model car. They showed up to Adam’s house with their proof. “They looked at it and asked us how many of them we had,” Cory said. “We negotiated a price, and they sold out of them the week after he got them.”
Cory and his son Cayden went to the big St. Louis Gateway Dome, indoor race in December. The father-son duo walked through the Dome and began showing their new creation to the some of the top dirt late model teams in attendance. Big names like Jonathan Davenport, Brandon Sheppard, Max Blair and Bobby Pierce. They wound up leaving with orders for more than 1,000 of their new “brick” cars. “It truly was a ‘pinch me’ moment,” Carlson admitted.
To say their idea has truly “taken off” is an understatement. The brothers have been busy filling orders round the clock. Week-by-week. These “Brick Cars” haven’t turned into their full-time gig – yet. Chris is still a full time design engineer at Emerson while Cory works for Verizon. Chris has retired from racing. “As far as Chris goes, I do think that mentally, this is helping him get through his actual retirement from being behind the wheel,” Cory explained. “This is a great way for us both to get back into the sport. Our ultimate goal is to make this our full time thing, and soon. We’re getting closer to that point.”
It certainly helps your cause when you’ve got one of the bigger names in dirt late model racing helping push your product. Pierce is just one of many of the bigger DLM wheelmen helping pimp their new product. “The way we do these is we’d get the vector file of Bobby Pierce’s wrap, for example,” Cory said. “We usually have three or four hours into putting the actual car together. And we sell them directly to the race teams and they have another great product to sell in their souvenir trailers while they are on the road and also through their respective websites, too. Truth is, these teams need to make money selling their merchandise.”
Among the Carlson Bros. many customers is dirt late model standout Bobby Pierce.
According to Cory Carlson, Pierce plans on selling his “BrickCars” for between $175 to $200. The Carlson brothers plan on selling cars for the same price that the WoO and Lucas Oils race teams sell them for. The Carlson brothers see themselves simply as an extension of the race teams themselves. “The way we look at it, it’s our way of giving back to the sport,” Cory explained. “Our family has a long history in racing. We want to continue that.”
During his own storied career, Chris competed at 103 different tracks in multiple states. However, the Carlson name will soon remain relevant in the Wisconsin racing circles. The 24-year-old Cayden, who’s been a multi-time karting champion with the Badger Kart Club in Dousman, has plans to jump into a full-sized car soon and battle at Wilmot Speedway, 141 Speedway (Francis Creek) and Plymouth Dirt Track soon.
While the ultimate goal will be for the Carlson’s to eventually get a concession trailer where folks can walk up and purchase their products, their website BrickinFastRaceCars.com or Brickinfast.com is up and running. The wraps are customized and involve quite a bit of labor. According to Cory, the site remains a “work in progress.” “We remember back in the day we never had the money to have any real cool swag as we always raced on a very tight budget,” Cory admitted. “Our shoestrings were “broke” per se. But fortunately, we had Bill Behling helping us out. So when it comes to these things, we’ll keep adjusting our prices to work with teams. We know how tough it can be.”
The brothers respective business plan includes expanding into sprint cars, haulers and other classes down the road – including retro designs. “My brother Chris is truly the brains behind all of this,” Cory confessed. “The response to what we’re doing has been overwhelming. We’d eventually like to bring the cost of these down so the teams themselves can make money money with them. We plan on growing this with regional and local teams, too.”