The Scoop
COY VLIES – ‘CASCO KID’ REFLECTS UPON ’26 IMCA NATIONAL CROWN, ’27 PLANS
Posted on: Wednesday September 30, 2026
“The Casco Kid” Coy Vlies in action at Luxy Raceway (Throttle Shots)
My middle school track coach, Lyman Fischer was always fond of saying “It takes a LITTLE MORE to become a champion.”
For the “Casco Kid” Coy Vlies, that meant criss-crossing the Midwest in the month of September – racing whenever and wherever there was an IMCA sportmod race that was paying out points, chasing that IMCA national crown.
The second-generation racer was locked into a season-long, national points chase with Iowan Jarett Franzen. In northeastern Wisconsin, Vlies was sort of limited as to the weekly tracks he could compete at.
Vlies captured championships at both of the track’s that he chased the weekly points titles at: 141 Speedway (Francis Creek) and Luxy Raceway in Luxemburg.
The 19-year-old found victory lane no less than 19 times in the ’26 campaign. His journey took him to a number of different race tracks he’d never competed at.
Among Vlies’ 19 victories, three of them were victories out-of-state: a pair of feature flags in Minnesota, and one in Iowa. In total, this national points chase took Vlies to no less than eight different, dirt ovals for the first time. Among those new tracks were one in Wisconsin (Lancaster), one in Illinois (East Moline), four in Iowa (Dubuque, West Liberty, Marshaltown and Davenport), and two in Minnesota (Buffalo River and Redwood).
Coy and his dad Jeff “PePe” Vlies in 2023.
Reedwood Speedway is where Vlies clinched the national crown on the final corner of the final lap. It was also the final night IMCA was tallying up national points.”Chasing a national title is something we talked about early in the year, but I honestly never thought it was possible,” Vlies admitted. “But, I knocked out four wins in a row early in the year. Sometimes, that can die off pretty fast after a quick start. But, we won consistently all year long.”
When Vlies clinched the deal Sunday, it was his 46th night of racing in 2026.
Things got a little interesting a week ago, when Franzen came north to race on Friday night at Outagamie Speedway in Seymour. The IMCA sportmods ran for national and regional points in support of the IRA sprint cars. “I guess it was rained out where he was, so we assumed he would come up here,” Vlies said. “He had bad weather down there, and Saturday’s forecast didn’t look good down his way, either.”
Franzen was civil earlier in the year towards Vlies, before the points battle really tightened up. “I was sort of surprised when we went down to Iowa to race, I had a lot of Iowa drivers come up and talk to me and said they were rooting for me to win it all,” Vlies confessed. “I thought that was kind of interesting, to get support from a bunch of Iowa drivers.”
According to Vlies, IMCA adds up a drivers best 25 finishes out of your first 50 races. “If we didn’t win it all this year, Dad (Jeff “PePe” Vlies) talked about trying to do it again next year,” Vlies said. “I mean, it’s fun chasing this deal, but it also takes the fun out of it a little bit. You do race differently when you are chasing a points title. Truthfully, we have so many good cars in this division locally, it prepared us pretty well when we did go out of town. I mean, most nights at Luxemburg, 141 or even Seymour when we ran there a few times, we have B mains most nights. Some of the tracks (Franzen) raced at they’d get 12-15 cars in the division. Dad and I figured out we could have done a swing down to Dubuque, Iowa earlier in the year. But it’s done.”
Having a pair of IMCA-sanctioned shows running on the same Friday night (Luxy and Outagamie) made things a tad tougher for Vlies. “Yeah, if we would have been able to run Sunday nights, that obviously could have amounted to less travel for us down the road,” Vlies admitted. “But, that doesn’t mean it would have been any easier. I mean, Franzen ran three nights weekly – with all of those tracks within an hour of his hometown. He didn’t have to travel quite as much as we did to pull it off.”
Vlies’ full time job is pouring concrete for a living with Badgerland Concrete. “My boss, Duke Kroll, loves racing and was always supportive of what we were doing,” Vlies admitted. “I couldn’t have done it without his help. He pretty much left me off to go racing whenever we needed to.”
Sacrifices were made all the way around with the 17 team. “Dad was along with us most of the nights we ran – even out of town,” Vlies said. “There were times we’d drive all night to get home around 6:30 p.m. Dad would take a shower and go right to work.” Other pit crew members were Todd Vlies, Dave Carpenter, Cory Cochart, Brody Cochart, Lance & Mandy Beyer, and Vlies’ girlfriend Isabell Van Boxtel.
According to Vlies, he has “no clue” what he will receive from IMCA with regards to pay for winning the national crown. “I do know we should wind up with a pretty good chunk of contingency prizes,” Vlies said. Vlies wheeled a Harris chassis to his national title.
What does the future hold for Vlies? He won’t be moving up. He’ll remain in the IMCA northern sportmod division in 2027. “But, I can promise you we won’t be running for the national deal again,” Vlies confirmed. “It’s a lot of pressure, and I put pressure on myself to win on that final night in Minnesota. We’re going to stay in the sportmod for one more season. We did race Josh Sorce’s IMCA stock car this year a few times and had fun. I’ve still got some races to win. Winning the Supernationals is on my bucket list, along with some other bigger paying events.”
After his Sunday night win in Minnesota, Vlies sits at 50 career feature wins, with a couple of races in ’26 still remaining on his schedule.
Casco’s Coy Vlies after a win at 141 Speedway May 2. (S and A photo)
With his fete, Vlies joins six other Wisconsin drivers who can lay claim to winning an IMCA national crown.
Vlies is the first to earn the accolade in the sportmod division. The division has been around locally now for 17 seasons. Other northeastern Wisconsin national champions include:
John Gregorich, Kewaunee, 1993 (stock car)
Benji LaCrosse, Luxemburg, 2006 (modified)
Jared Siefert, Green Bay, 2007 (modified)
Rod Snellenberger, Pulaski, 2008 (stock car)
Brandon Czarapata, Pulaski, 2012 & 2013 (stock car)
Travis Van Straten, Hortonville, 2015 (stock car)
Vlies’ large team of marketing partners includes: 4cc Trucking, Brookside Meats, Casco Kid’s Zone, Concrete Finishers, Casco 1 Shop, Cobbler Shop, Chad Roffers Trucking, CL Cochart LLC, Dairyland Exteriors, Extreme Enterprises, Floors By Josh, FOX River Marine, Harris Auto Racing, Hypero Springs, Hunters Edge Archery, Jolly’s Street Pizza, KNJ Holdings, Klink Equipment, Massart’s Auto Body, Neighborhood Auto Repair, Nick’s Bumper To Bumper, Pagel’s Ponderosa Dairy, Performance Bodies and Parts, Prestige Custom Cabinetry and Millwork, Performance Shocks, Rohr-N-Machine, Ron’s Wisconsin Cheese, Todd Weise, Throttle Shots Photography, Tri-County Heating, Viking Electric, Vlies Electric, Velocita USA, Victory Sign LLC, Waterfront Bar and Grill, Wehrs Machine, Wisconsin Diecast and Woody’s Signs.
2026 REGIONAL DIRT TRACK FEATURE WINNERS (as of 9-29-26)
(Tracks included, but not limited to: Outagamie Speedway, Gravity Park USA, Luxy Raceway, 141 Speedway, The Hill Raceway, Plymouth Dirt Track & Shawano Speedway. We’ll also include feature wins by N.E. Wisconsin drivers scored at other tracks, including out-of-state and series victories. These include both IMCA sanctioned & non-sanctioned wins)
LATE MODELS
Nick Anvelink 8
Joel Bennett 8
Brett Swedberg 4
Mitch McGrath 2
Turk Letizia 1
Jesse Glenz 1
Troy Springborn 1
Andy Karl 1
Taylor Scheffler 1
Paul Parker 1
Brad Mueller 1
IMCA MODIFIEDS
Cole Czarneski 10 (Dakota Mod Tour)
Johnny Whitman 6
Jayden Schmidt 5
Russ Reinwald 4
Dylon Waldvogel 3
Benji LaCrosse 3
Lucas Lamberies 3
Steve Mueller 3
Will Garceau 3
Kevin Feck 3
Mike Mullen 3
Jesse Cullen 3
Mike Mueller 2
Travis Hansen 2
Joel Seegert Sr. 2
Marcus Yarie 2
Tanner Janke 2
Noah Schepp 2
Jeffrey Teske 2
Brandon Schmitt 2
Zachary Raab 1
Greg Gretz 1
Mike Wedelstadt 1
Todd Dart 1
Jason Ebert 1
Adam Abbey 1
Colton See 1
Trent Nolan 1
Eric Scribner 1
Josh Long 1
Wyatt Block 1 (ERS)
IMCA STOCK CARS
Trent Nolan 9
Cole Czarneski 8 (IA)
Brad Lubach 7
Brett Wenzel 7
Rod Snellenberger 6 (FLA)
Tyler Wilson 5 (IA)
Marcus Hoeppner 5
Nick Buckarma 5
Luke Lemmens 4
Benji LaCrosse 4
Jeremy Christians 4
Mike Mullen 4
Dustin White 3 (ERS)
Caden LeMieux 3
Dan Michonski 3
Jerry Wilinski 2
Chase Parker 2
Eric Mahlik 2
Mitch Stankowski 2 (ERS)
Presley Harrington 2 (IA)
Kyle Frederick 2
Tyler Schrimpf 2
Zackary Marg 1
Brandon Schmitt 1
Travis Welch 1
Jeremie Hedrick 1
Shawn Kilgore 1
Shanon Guelette 1
Kegan Van Ooyen 1
Jeremy Anschutz 1
Marcus Hoepper 1
Dylan Stedjee 1
RM Van Pay 1
Keslie Richards 1
Junior Karcz 1
Travis Van Straten 1
Daniel Sell 1
Jamison MacDonald 1 (IA)
IMCA NORTHERN SPORTMODS
Coy Vlies 19
Travis Schmidt 6
AJ Springborn 6
Craig Dorner 4
Tim Jorgenson 3
Max Oreskovich 3
Cole Magnin 3
Brady Harshbarger 3
Dylan Schmidt 3
Ryan Schmidt 3
Justin Green 3
Dustin White 2 (ERS)
Matt Urban 2
JJ Vander Loop 2
Tim Sheppard 2
Shane Bahr 2
Brayden Carter 2
Alec Wery 2
Tom Schneider 2
Carsin Cullen 2
Joey Taycher 1
Owen Wilcox 1
Tony Gates 1
Brad Buckman 1
Logan Brass 1
Cole Thomas 1
Kaden Besaw 1
Trevin Veeser 1
Tony Gates 1
Jacob Rens 1
Elijah Koening 1
Tucker Pari 1
Derek Fehling 1
George Henkel 1
Steve Lorier 1
Randy LeMieux Jr 1
Dakota Johnson 1
Brad Miller 1
Travis Kleindl 1
Frank Gasperini 1
Cory Kemkes 1
Eric Craine 1
Jake Sachau 1
Chris Budzban 1
Austin Zdroik 1 (ERS)
Brian Konitzer 1
Cole Czarneski 1
UNIFIED DIRT STREET STOCKS
Derek Moede 7
Trey Van Straten 7
Phillip Wuesthoff 7
Paul Diefenthaler 7
Cody Potter 6 (TNT, ERS)
Dave DeGrave 5
Alex Haese 5
Shanon Guelette 5
Roman Blank 4
Travis Zirbel 3
Dave DeGrave 2
Jason Eisel 2 (ERS)
Hope Eisel 2 (ERS)
Garrett Geyer 2
Austin Steinke 2
Brayden Lundquist 1
Cory Romenesko 1
Todd Berzowski 1
Paul Ambrosius 1
Kyle Genett 1
Brian Gundrum 1
James Riske 1
Jake Brickner 1
Chad Vetting 1
Tyler Fox 1
Tucker Bodendorfer 1
Quentin Morrison 1 (ERS)
GRAND NATIONALS
Jeff Richards 10
Jake Richards 8
Jeff Muehlbauer 5
Brad Weiss 3
Mavrick Ruh 3
Tyler Kulow 2
Luke Scholten 2
Nate Ruh 1
Will Sorce 1
Nick Schumacher 1
Brad Lubach 1
Josh Pierce 1
Marshall Plate 1
Matt Urban 1
Rick Mahlberg 1
FOUR CYLINDERS/IMCA SPORT COMPACTS
James Reese 9
TJ Everard 8
Tanner Westphal 5
Cody Booth 5
Brian Watzka Jr 5
Scott Schlafke 4
Mike Meier 4
Kyle Jorgenson 3
Cody McClain 3
Lucas Hacker 2
Nathan Lisowe 2
Thomas Schulte 2
Calvin Stueck 2
Brett Deprez 2
Dan Thomson 2
Brad Wedde 2
Bennett Glidden 2
Autumn Allard 2
Chase Ertel 2
Brian Hillringhouse 1
Tony Everard 1
Jake Peters 1
Robbie Holst Jr 1
Shaun Bangart 1
Dallas Topel 1
Skyler Bork 1
Todd Boehlein 1
Derek Crane 1
LS/USRA LATE MODEL
Mark Hoeppner 8
Jason Zdroik 3
Lucas Peterson 3
Eric Klawatter 3
Jeff Thomas 2
Todd Gorny 2
Guy Carley 2
Logan Fleischmann 2
Jason McFadden 1
Corbyn Wassenberg 1
Dave Bennett 1
Pat Kelley 1
Keslie Richards 1
Jake Binash 1
Chad Lederer 1