The Scoop
COY VLIES – TEEN RACER SCORES A TRIO OF WINS IN JUNE
Posted on: Thursday June 29, 2023
16-year-old Coy Vlies has taken the local IMCA sportmods by storm. The soon-to-be junior at Kewaunee High School scored three feature wins in the month of June.
The month of June has been a big one for Coy Vlies.
The 16-year-old IMCA northern sportmod rookie has most certainly turned some heads with his recent performances. The second-generation racer from Kewaunee has earned three feature wins within a 15 day span of each other at two different speedways. The first of his victories came June 3 at 141 Speedway in Francis Creek.
To prove that solid run at 141 wasn’t a fluke, the teenage speedster promptly silenced any doubters with back-to-back feature wins at the Sunday night shows at The ‘Burg Speedway in Luxemburg June 11 and 18. It’s at Luxemburg where Vlies holds a slim one-point edge over Sturgeon Bay’s Cody Rass and a four point margin over his own dad who he races against – Jeff “PePe” Vlies.
Coy will be a junior at Kewaunee High School this fall. He’s traded in his football helmet for a racing helmet and has decided to go “all in” with dirt track racing. He’d rather spend more time in the shop than in the weight room or on the basketball court or the gridiron.
However, his dad Jeff is quick to bring him back down to earth and not let this rush of quick success get to his head. “I try to give him advice and that includes living to fight another day,” Jeff Vlies said. “Races aren’t won on the first lap. Not all the races are going to go smoothly but so far, the kid has impressed me. I mean he won at 141 and that’s a place I’ve seemed to struggle at. I’ve never won a feature there.”
Jeff started his own racing career in 1998 but took some years off when his kids were little.
It was when Vlies began racing for Sturgeon Bay car owners Terry and Becky Conlon that Coy began tagging along and spending more time in the shop with dad. “We did have a kart that he raced out at Massart’s for a while, but those things can get pretty expensive,” Jeff said. “You can dump five grand into a karting program easily. To me, I’m a big car guy and my zone is with the full-sized race cars.”
Coy Vlies poses with his dad Jeff “PePe” Vlies at The ‘Burg Speedway in Luxemburg.
When Coy opted often to follow dad’s own stock car racing ventures instead of running his own kart is when the thoughts of Coy racing full-sized stock cars himself began to evolve. “Even when dad didn’t race, we’d go to the races as it was what we did on weekends,” Coy admitted.
Coy’s first laps in a sportmod were at The Hill Raceway in Sturgeon Bay later in 2022. It was a rough initiation of sorts as Coy tagged the frontstretch wall. “Yeah, that first lap wasn’t so good,” Coy recalled.
But from that tough first outing with the Sturgeon Bay frontstretch wall, Vlies has come out swinging in 2023. Jeff wasn’t racing when Coy scored that initial “W” at Francis Creek. “I remember that night at 141 I had won my heat and started fourth in the feature when we had an early yellow,” Coy said. “While we were under caution, I looked at the track and decided to go to the top groove and give it a try.”
That decision to go upstairs paid off as Vlies started passing cars, grabbing the lead with 10 laps to go. “Once he got into the lead, I figured he had a pretty good chance so long as he didn’t jump the cushion or do something stupid,” Jeff said. “I was impressed as to how well he kept the car underneath him and stayed in control. 141 is a place that can eat you alive if you’re not watching things carefully. I have trouble seeing there for some reason. Maybe it’s the lighting or I’m just getting old? Who knows?”
Jeff “PePe” Vlies (right) poses with Sturgeon Bay car owner Terry “T.C.” Conlon.
Jeff Vlies is enjoying racing against his son on occasion – piloting a No. 99 owned machine owned by “T.C.” “T.C. is retired and maintains the car up in Sturgeon Bay,” Jeff said. “Sometimes I’ll take the tires with me because I’ve got a tire changer at our shop in Casco. But whenever the schedule dictates Sturgeon Bay is pretty much our home track, and we won’t miss any nights up there.”
As the summer wears on, Jeff is teaching Coy more and more about the importance of routine maintenance and how races are won or lost in the shop. One of Coy’s roles has been handling the grinding and washing the already-siped tires Jeff purchases from Tom Brumlic. “We had a valuable lesson in practice recently,” Jeff said. “Coy had a nut fall of the steering mechanism of the car. It was a valuable lesson that didn’t cost us anything. But I can guarantee you that nut gets looked at weekly now – as it should.”
After tearing up some sheet metal in a minor scrap at Sturgeon Bay, Coy has learned aspects of the fabricating end of things too. It’s a craft Jeff’s dad has honed for the past several years with his Vlies Custom Bodies where Jeff builds interior and bodies for more than two dozen local stock car racers. “As (Coy) bends more sheet metal he’s getting better at it,” Jeff joked.
According to Coy he’ll continue to learn in the sportmod division. But he does have his eye on wheeling a modified down the road. “It’s early but so far we want to take things year by year,” Coy said. “It’s a blast and hopefully I can continue to have a couple of real good years in sportmod. When you do move up to the modified class it seems everybody is good and most everyone knows what they are doing.”
As for Jeff he’ll continue to bend up tin and make fellow racers stuff look sharp. He’ll also keep racing for the Conlon’s so long as he can keep doing it. “We got Shawn Kilgore’s car during the off season and honestly it put a little bit more jump back into my step,” Jeff said. “As long as T.C. and Becky want to continue doing this I’ll keep on driving for them. We won’t miss any races in Sturgeon Bay and other tracks. I won’t ever do a 50-night schedule but Sturgeon Bay and Luxemburg will always be a part of my racing program.”
The marketing partners assisting with Coy’s racing team efforts include Performance Bodies & Parts, A’Boat Time Restaurant, Millie’s in Algoma, Jolly Street Pizza, Prestige Custom Cabinetry, Rohr-N-Machine, Waterfront Bar & Grill, Neighborhood Auto Repair, SealTec Seal Coating, K N J Holdings, LaVine’s Ice, Marchant’s Meats & Sausage, Harris Auto Racing, Wisconsin Diecast, Brookside Meats, Floors By Josh, Ron’s Wisconsin Cheese LLC, Matjoulis-Seay Speed Shop, CFM Esports, Pagels Ponderosa Dairy LLC, Viking Electric, Belgian Delight, Tri County Heating, Great Lakes Grading & Excavating.
Some of those same marketing partners overlap with Pepe’s operation. Those that don’t include Massart’s Garage, JW’s Place, Sonny’s Pizza, Coors Light – Kay Distributing, Black Sheep Pub and Grill, Slick Chassis, Nick’s Carquest, Vlies Custom Race Car Bodies, Herberli After Hours, Cornerstone Suites, Paul J Georgia CPA, LDP Drone Photography, Kelsey Racing, Woody’s Signs and Dart Motorsports.